tO STEN DAS tne RT ‘ SN ANG NASCAR ROTA a NRA AION NS Key ie ‘ i SN SEE NG RANA CaN REANIM ANOS ARR Oy AEA RAN Rel UU tae a CORNELL | UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library PE 1460.H17 WMA ON ENGLISH ADJECTIVES IN -ABLE. By the same Author. ge, RECENT EXEMPLIFICATIONS OF FALSE PHILOLOGY. Pp. 124. NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, & CO. 1872. MODERN ENGLISH. Pp. 16 and 394. NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, & CO. LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. 1873. “ Almost indispensable to the student of the English language.”—Rev. Walter W. Skeat, in The Academy, Jan, 24, 1874. For other Works, see the end of this volume. In preparation. AMERICANISMS DISCRIMINATED AND CLASSIFIED. ON ENGLISH ADJECTIVES IN -ABLE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO RELIABLE. BY FITZEDWARD HALL, C.E, M.A., HON. D.C.L. OXON., FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, AND OF INDIAN JURISPRUDENCE, IN KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON. Alius enim alio plura invenire potest, nemo omnia.—Ausonivs. LONDON: TRUBNER & CO, LUDGATE HILL 1877. [All rights reserved.] | ® “CORMELEN UNIVIE SITY N\A ‘ PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON PREFACE. —_————— Iv 1873, when announcing the preparation of a new volume of Philological Essays, I promised a paper on ‘ Reliable, Dilation, and their Respective Congeners.’ Subsequently, however, on thinking over the matter, I found, that, in order to treat, with desirable thoroughness, of Reliable and words similar, it was necessary to survey, in connexion with them, our adjectives in -ad/e generally. Act- ing on this conviction, I put together the greater part of what is now offered, reserving any criticism on Dilation and its analogues,for another occasion. But my materials and the comments they had suggested were seen, eventually, to have exceeded the limits of a mere chapter. An introduction was prefixed; and here, in an independent form, is the outcome. The following pages, substantially as they at present appear, were ready for type nearly two years ago. In the meantime, I have enriched them somewhat from fresh reading; and I have no doubt that I might have enriched them consi- vi PREFACE. derably more, if I had kept my manuscript still longer unprinted. Indeed, in the course of its leisurely committal to the press, I have been en- abled to supplement it rather liberally, as the Additions, at the end of the volume, give evidence. For my frequent excursions from the strict sub- ject-matter with which I have undertaken to deal, I make no apology; and none, certainly, will be expected by those who love our language so well as to think it worth investigating in even the obscurest of its byways. On no small number of interesting topics, here discussed, one will fruit- ‘lessly explore, in quest of information, any and all of our grammars and dictionaries, including both the latest and the most copious. To the philologist, the caprices of lawless word-coiners, and scarcely less the ventures of the illiterate, are, alike with what has long been established in good usage, deserving of considera- tion. It is, for the most part, the verbal anoma- lies of the past that enable us to predict, as to their character, what, in spite of the influences of education, will be, at least for some time, the verbal anomalies which await us. Duly pondered, they instruct us, that the tendency of our lan- guage, as now current, to develop irregularly in certain specific directions, is irrepressible. The fact is, beyond denial, worthy of record, and that with a certain emphasis. This premised, I must PREFACE. vil have sufficiently guarded myself against the sus- picion, that I recommend, either for adoption or for imitation, the numerous eccentricities here for the first time disentombed, in reward of a little pains, from their condign obscurity. As to the word feeliable, on which perhaps I may seem to have dwelt disproportionately, with no fairness can I be called its advocate. It is not the proper province of him who interests him- self in philology, to do much more than assemble facts, and discuss them in the light of sound prin- ciples. Actuated by this view, it is, above all, my aim, in what I have to say of Reliable, to inculcate the lesson, that, with regard to any point of language, however unimportant, no trustworthy conclusion is likely to be arrived at otherwise than by diligent research and by calm reflexion. Of all dogmatism, where a position is not rigidly demonstrated, the sole appraisement consonant to justice is, that it should count for nothing, FE, H. Maresrorp, Wickaam Marxet, November 1, 1876. Page, 3 6 14 41 42 46 50 54 57 62 71 73 77 86 103 145 155 182 188 Line of Line of Text. 18 16 22 Notes, CORRECTIONS. oF Expunge Read Insert Read. eo Expunge Read. no visor. aliunde. obruere. mistaking f for an old s, Mr. W. E. Gladstone. a ” 9 ” Paley, dissectible. défensable. odorable. . of. An Old English. alible, Partable, ‘having a share.’ Lydgate.” unvaluable. Reproachable,4 ‘ reproachful.’ An Old English. Mr. Singer. say. brag. unfrequently, merchants. At pp. 104, 116, 123, 177, 193, The Bayte and Snare of Fortune is attri- buted to Lydgate. At p. 123, text and notes, for 1, read 2. The third paragraph in small type should have been marked as note 1, on Damnable. Its author is Roger Bieston. ON “RELIABLE,” &. A distinguished lawyer and essayist, Mr. J. F. Stephen, relates,’ and with implied admiration of the fallacy which it involves, the following anec- dote: ‘Some friends once discussed a question into which was introduced the phrase of ‘the Personality of the Absolute.’ One of the party excused himself from joining in the discussion, on the ground that he saw no use in inquiring whether or not the Untied wears a Mask.” The same writer, in the article from which this extract is made, unconsciously agreeing with a rimester of Henry the Highth’s time, in “Consyderyng that our tonge is now suffycyent To expoun any hard sentence evydent,”? 1 In The Contemporary Review, December, 1874. 2 An Interlude of the Four Elements (ed. 1848), p. 3. Much to the same effect writes Sir Thomas More, in the latter part of the following extract : ‘For, as for that our tong is called barbarouse, ys but a fantesye. For so is, as every lerned man knoweth, every straunge langage to other, And, yf they wold call yt barayn of wordis, there ys no A 2 ventures the opinion: ‘‘ Surely, the common Eng- lish of everyday life is quite capable of expressing any proposition which has a distinct meaning.” In nothing of this is any trace discernible of Mr. Stephen’s wonted wariness. First let us take the expression ‘‘ Personality of the Absolute.” Convention might, no doubt, have decreed that personality should mean, liter- ally, ‘maskedness,’ and that absolute should mean, literally, ‘untied.’ But convention did not so decree ; and these terms, to those to whom they convey any definite idea whatever, convey the idea which I need not stop to define. As long ago as in the age of Terence, persona imported not only ‘mask,’ but the ‘part’ sus- tained by a stage-player; and, soon afterwards, the word came to have significations so nearly akin to those which we give it, that Cicero, though he may never have heard personalis and personali- tas, could not have failed to understand by them just what we understand by personal and personality, and, quite possibly, without their reminding him, unless in a grammatical mood, of persona, ‘mask.’ Nor would he have seen anything very odd in absolutum, already ‘perfect,’ as designating the Deity philosophically; whereas, in substitution doute but yt ys plentuouse ynoughe to expresse our myndys in eny thing wherof one man hath used to speke with a nother.”— A Dyaloge, &c. (ed. 1529), fol. 96 r. 3 for it, solutum, ‘untied,’ or, secondarily, ‘ unre- strained,’ would, it may be surmised, have struck him as, at best, inadequate and infelicitous. Even with the best scholars among us moderns, the primary and etymological senses of Latinistic words are very far from being so immediately present to the consciousness as such senses of Latin words ordinarily were to the Romans. For all this, a Roman would no more have seen the equivalence of ‘maskedness of the Untied’ in Absoluti personalitas, than we see such equiva- lence in ‘‘ Personality of the Absolute.” More-. over, if we must take personality, in this phrase, as one with ‘maskedness,’ why must not we take it similarly, when we speak of ‘the personality of an animadversion’? Nay, how are we to escape the necessity of interpreting an impersonal verb to be a verb ‘that wears a visor’? Once more, persona, in the very oldest accep- tation of it that we know of, is, itself, a meta- phor. Being derived, a little way back, from per, ‘through,’ and sonare, ‘to sound,’ it would seem a much more fitting name for a wind-instru- ment than for a cover to the face; and it has often been suggested, that it was chosen to signify ‘mask,’ from the supposed fact, that one of the most essential constituents of ancient masks was an acoustic contrivance having something of the property of a trumpet. 4 Not at all peculiar was Sir Hudibras, in that “ He could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope.” Mankind in general, whether civilized or savage, transacts nine parts in ten of all its mental pro- cesses and communications in language other than literal.’ Even to discourse about the four ele- mentary operations of arithmetic is impossible without recourse to metaphor. Still, since there are metaphors and metaphors, and as many bad as good, it behoves us to scrutinize searchingly alike such as we employ in train to others, and such as we feel tempted to hazard as novelties. Those which are over-recondite, or repulsive, will, of course, be avoided by every man of good judg- ment and correct taste. It is a fault, also, to heap up metaphors needlessly. Considered logically, those are objectionable which come short of going properly on all fours. In the sphere of rhetoric duly subordinated to reason, the most frequent abuse of metaphors consists in combining them so as to produce incongruity. A typical instance of what is here meant was afforded. by the apocryphal Irish orator, who, wishing to say, figuratively, that he had detected * Mr. Stephen himself has written: “ Most words are metaphors from sensible objects.” Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873), p. 297. 5 the existence of a plot, and was sure of frustrating it, delivered himself on this wise: ‘I smell a rat; I see it floating in the air; but I shall nip it in the bud.” But enough has been said of metaphors, as to which’ all that I insist on is, that they are both inevitable and indispensable. Apply rigorously the principle on which the term personality, as now current, has been objected to, and, to name one of the painful consequences that perforce ensue, we are debarred from characterizing Mr. Stephen as, what he unquestionably is, a gentleman of very considerable influence. For influence was, originally, a technicality of the astrologers; and Mr. Stephen is not exactly a celestial Juminary. The sense which we attach to influence is metaphorical ; and no less so was the medieval sense which the term bore; since no one ever maintained that there was a literal, material ‘inflowing’ of anything from the heavenly bodies upon human affairs. Interesting as it is to investigate the antecedents of words, if, as the legitimate fruit of our investigations, we tied ourselves to confining their meanings to the limits marked out for them in the earliest historic periods, we should find ourselves reduced to straits almost as desperate as would result from our having to talk in pantomime. Let us now consider briefly the second passage which I began with quoting. 6 There would have been no room for demur, if Mr. Stephen had protested against the verbal coinages which infringe the proper criteria of new or unusual expressions. But he goes very much further than this. Offended by what he calls the “nicknames” necessist and phenomenist, used by Dr. W. G. Ward, he so expresses himself, with intention to condemn them, as, by implication, to deprecate, absolutely, all additions to the stock of English at this moment in circulation. That this, by direct inference, is his position, can be made out very summarily. Corresponding to every new invention, and to every newly discovered bird, beast, fish, insect, or the like, there must be a new name; and a com- plete sentence which embodies a name of this description, as of any other description, constitutes a proposition. But, if ‘‘the common English of everyday life is quite capable of expressing any proposition which has a distinct .meaning,’’’ a 1 At p. 337 of his Liberty, &c., Mr. Stephen uses the word dyslogistic. For so doing, no reasonable man can have the least quarrel with him; but it would be hard for him to show, that, on his own principles, he ought not to have avoided it. And how can he allow himself in the employment of the term resultant, which he is rather fond of, though it surely does not belong to “the common English of everyday life”? Elsewhere he has written of “a remarkable man aluinde,” and of novels “articulated by means of . . . dramatic contrivances.” With reference to Dr. Newman’s most useful despecification of certitude and certainty, he remarks, parenthetically, at p. 327 of the work named above, on “certainty or certitude:” ‘for I do c proposition which is inexpressible except by its embodying a new name, cannot have “a distinct meaning,” and, consequently, in all congruity, is to be rejected. Since, however, it is to be rejected because of the new name therein pre- sented, we are to reject the new name itself. Had Mr. Stephen written in the spirit of a rational philologist, he would have dealt with the terms necessist and phenomenist altogether otherwise. Dr. Ward is a theologian and metaphysician of great learning, deep reflexion, and thorough acquaint- ance with the resources of our existing vocabulary.* not care to distinguish between words between which common usage makes no distinction.” Apparently, ‘‘common usage” has obtained, with him, such a degree of consecration, that he looks upon any symptom of discontent with it as a going beyond just “liberty.” Speaking of one out of certain “ webs of sophistry,” two pages after the last extract, he tells us : “It assumes every sort of form, and is exemplified in a thousand shapes, in the writings of modern Roman Catholics and of some mystical Protestants.” Here, as the context suggests, we have mystical in the vulgar and ignorant sense of ‘misty,’ ‘confused.’ If Mr. Stephen had lived in the days when disingenuity was generally put for disingenuousness, it looks as if he would have sided, as to this substitution, with the majority. , 1 Dr. Ward writes: “Iam sure you will admit, that, in philoso- phical discussion, philological propriety should at once give way, where any increase of clearness and accuracy can be obtained.” On Nature and Grace, Book I., p. 40. This is remarked in connexion with Dr. Ward’s proposal of the verb intue and the substantive intuem. Something like iutue we much need : intuit would be more ana- logical; and Mr. De Quincey in his Works (ed. 1862), Vol. 10, p. 42, has actually used it, adding “so to speak.” Intuem, for “a truth 8 It may be assumed, then, that he thought he had good reasons for accepting, if indeed he did not devise, his mecessist and phenomenist. These strangers, however, represented by their sponsor, are liable to citation before the court of philology, to give, if they can, a satisfactory account of them- selves. And, when they are once there, a moment’s glance is sufficient to evince that we must dis- criminate between their respective pretensions. Necessitarian, and also necessarian, may seem to be somewhat cumbrous; and it may be deemed desirable to have a shorter word in their stead. Whether it be that necessist was proposed merely to supplant these polysyllables, or in. a sense different from theirs, I need not stop to inquire. Whatever may be intended by it, there is that about the word which will not satisfy the learned ; and the needs of the unlearned are here out of question. acsimilist is grounded on facsimile, the termination of which, that of a neuter Latin adjective, tallies with the termination of necesse,— as generally explained,—the ground of necessist. But then we have naturalized facsimile ; and we legitimately intued,” is an odd mixture of Latin and Greek. How would intwmen, to match with Coleridge’s contemplamen, answer ? Dr. Ward’s ex-regarding, which, we are told, is shortened from extra-regarding, the opposite of ‘self-regarding,’ will never do, certainly. 9 have not naturalized zecesse. Our adsolutist, extremist, and positivist, as having, formally, if not historically, vernacular bases, lend xecessist no support whatsoever. In the sibilating necessitist we should have a formation perfectly normal. As to phenomenist, here again there is no call to concern ourselvés particularly with the meaning of the word before us. Ifa rival of phenomenalist, a word which is as yet only a candidate in the terminology of metaphysics, no exception can be taken to it’; and, if to signify something else, a definition such as shall show it to be useful will 1 For agriculturist and agriculturalist, elegist, optimist, and words generally in -zst, see my Recent Exemplifications of False Philology, and my Modern English. Dr. Whewell, in connexion with his plea for physicist and scten- tist, observes: “The terminations -zze (rather than -ise), -ism, and -ist, are applied to words of all origins: thus, we have to pulverize, to colonize, witticism, heathenism, journalist, tobacconist. Hence, we may make such words, when they are wanted.” The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (ed. 1840), Vol. 1, p. exiii. This statement is much too broad. Elsewhere I have shown that photographist and telegraphist are greatly inferior to photographer and telegrapher; and that, on grounds of analogy, developist, emana- tist, &e., &c., are not to be tolerated. Words to express ‘advocate of the doctrine of development’ and ‘advocate of the doctrine of emanation’ are, unquestionably, “‘ wanted ;” but, with due regard for the laws of our language, we may not take up with those which have been proposed, based on the verbs develop and emanate. Again, the verb shunt has, very recently, been introduced into general speech ; and, as people are constantly engaged in shunting, an agential of shunt was urgently ‘‘ wanted.” Shunter was at once evolved from it. But who would have endured shuntist? I might say very much more in criticism of Dr. Whewell’s dic- tum ; only this is not the place. 10 complete its justification. Viewed etymologically, it is open to no censure, . Built up on dauvopevov, it is equally regular with atheist, built up on a6eos, and, in one respect, has the advantage of it, inas- much as gasvouevov has become English, pheno- menon. From our allopathist, rhapsodist, strategist, &c., &e., originating from allopathy, &e., it is patent how freely, in constructing derivatives, we displace, by -ist, another termination. Mr. Stephen, as we have seen, is affected simply with aversion by the sight of a strange word, A philosopher of his serenity should, assuredly, be counted on as exempt from the thraldom of so poor a passion as aversion. A whole host of vices may, to be sure, infect a new word; just as they infect many an old word, which, still, we abide uncomplainingly, for the sole reason that we are accustomed to it. But, on the other hand, a new word may be, and oftentimes is, so happy, that we take it up the very moment we first hear it, and make it our own for life. We are not to forget that words are for us, not we for words. Everything in nature is evermore changing, and words with the rest. Our minds, further, are like kaleidoscopes, constantly presenting things to us in new relations. That new words, therefore, should not be every day emerging, is impossible. A thousand causes, all which may be summed up in expediency, contribute to their generation; and 11 such as are real desiderata gradually establish themselves, often to the abolition of long-lived predecessors, let conservatives do what they will to restrict us to the diction of our fathers. Especially in our own times, those among them which conflict with analogy are not likely, save for very cogent reasons, to acquire a settlement. We need not fear, then, for the purity of our language; a phrase, by the by, which means, now- a-days, something very different from what it meant during the stagnation of the last century. On these matters, Mr. Stephen pronounces as if out of the darkest of dark ages. Exactness, perspicuity, and brevity are, to him, nothing, in English, as compared with the charms of common- placeness. Any amount of circumlocution is preferable, in his eyes, to that portent, a word which bears the stigma of novelty. The mention of Professor Winlock’s hygrophant must cost him most painful sensations;, and, if galvanism had been discovered by one of his contemporaries, how could he have brought himself to vote for so monstrous a designation? Let no mineralogist who has hit’ on a new sort of stone, think of denominating it, in compliment to him, Stephenite.* 1 Words like this exemplify lingual detrition at its extreme limit. Their termination represents NéOos, ‘stone,’ altered succes- sively into -lite and -tte. We took these terminations, now become indispensable, from the French. 12 The complimentee, if true to his own principles, could not possibly hear of his complimenter’s having found out anything less paraphrastic than ‘the substance which is exhibited to the world of science, in honorary association with the renown of Mr. James Fitzjames Stephen.’ For how, pray, without this expense of speech, as expressive of his discovery, could the mineralogist conform to the requirements intimated by the enunciation, that “the common English of everyday life is quite capable of expressing any proposition which has a distinct meaning ”’? The rash utterances of a very clever man, but indifferent philologist, which I have now finished examining, have not been brought forward and analysed gratuitously. As Mr. Stephen has done, so thousands more have done, and, in spite of warnings and exposures, will, doubtless, go on: doing. Of those who talk and write as if they thought that a knowledge of philology comes by inspiration, and has inspired themselves in parti- cular, the number is legion. And, the less they have of this knowledge, the greater, often, is their daring, Tell a person of this class, that he can with no more safety pronounce, intuitively, on a philological matter than on an astronomical or a chemical, and his answer is ridicule. Still, to any one who will take the trouble to reflect seri- ously, it must seem to stand to reason that you 13 are right in holding such language. Every word has a history; and, without acquainting one’s self with that history, how, with reasonable confidence, can one make positive assertions regarding it? Nor, in order to have a complete history of a word, can we, after investigating its aucestry, dispense with inquiry concerning its cousins, and perhaps even to the third or fourth remove. Here its etymology, its morphological variations, and its changes of signification, are contemplated. But, besides all this, there are the questions ot its being analogical in form, or the contrary; of its age in our vernacular speech; of the conven- tional sense or senses of it now, or formerly, most accredited; of its respectability, or vulgarity; of its utility, or superfluousness; and a great. many questions more, which these samples may serve to suggest. Now, most certainly, these are not things to guess about; and yet we daily meet with people who treat them as if they could be ascertained by sheer instinct or conjecture, who contemptuously resent any reluctance in others to accept their chimerical conclusions, and who, if demonstrated, by an exhibition of facts, to have discoursed headlong nonsense, turn upon their critic, and call him bad names,—pedant and such-like. In partial illustration of what I have here remarked, I will, for one thing, transcribe, before proceeding to my special sub- 14 ject, the various pronouncements of lexicographers on the origin of an expression which is familiar to every. man, woman, and child of us. The expression is topsyturvy. Boldly ‘transformed into topsiturnie,’ it is ex- plained, by Minsheu,’ as a corruption of “the topside turned.” According to Skinner,’ it is from “tops in turvs”;* referring to which, Dr. Johnson is of opinion that Skinner only ‘‘ fancies.”’ Elisha Coles® takes it to be ‘‘ for ‘the upside the other way.’” Miege® says: ‘The word seems to be a contraction or corruption from ‘ the one side t’other way.’”? Edward Lye,’ the supple- menter of Junius, is uncertain as to its origin from “ top,” and the Icelandic verb ‘“ tyrva, obruer.” Grose,* while insisting on ‘the top side tother way,” adds, that ‘‘some explain it ‘the top side turf ways.’” Dr. E. C. Brewer ® 1 The last member of this invention was suggested, it may be, by the old cwrney, —in French, tournoi, traceable to the verb tourner, ‘turn, 2 The Guide into the Tongues, &c. (1617). The revised edition of 1626 has the same topsiturnte. 3 Etymologicon Lingue Anglicane (1671). * Possibly, topsie-tursie, once used by Dr. Thomas Holyoke (1677), is an error of the press, for topsie-turfie, from mistaking an old for s. Elsewhere, Holyoke has topsie-turvy. 5 An English Dictionary, &c. (1677). The Great French Dictionary (1687-88). Etymologicum Anglicanum (1743). 3 A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785). Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 6 7 8 y 15 is so good as to allow us an option between ‘top- sid turn-aweg ” and “ top-sid turn-weg down,” two so-called Anglo-Saxon phrases, of which, to all appearance, he is the original and undisputed pro- prietor. And now comes the unflinching Mr. Wedg- wood,’ who informs us, with unhesitating certitude: “From topside Vother way. It is written topsr- toermay in Search’s Light of Nature.’ Mr. Wedgwood should have acknowledged that he had been anticipated, as to this reference, by Dr. Richardson, in his Dictionary. I may add, that, long before the time of Search,—that is to say, Abraham Tucker,—Hamon L’Estrange? wrote ¢op- side tother way. Archdeacon Nares* quotes, for topsideturvey,* Thomas Kyd’s Cornelia, which appeared in 1594. In The History of the Cardinals® occurs top-si- turvy ; the writer perhaps intending to indicate, by his first hyphen, his belief that the sz of the word was shortened from side.® It was, perhaps, 1 A Dictionary of English Etymology. 2 The Reign of King Charles (ed. 1656), p. 72. 3 A Glossary, &c. 4 Robert Ainsworth, the lexicographer (1736), has topside-turvy as one of the definitions of inversus. 5 P. 128, This work, an anonymous translation, was published in 1670. Tupsiturvie is used by James Howell, in Dodona’s Grove (1640), p. 50. 6 Shakespeare uses topsylurvy once only, but with a very notice- able addition. “We shall o’re-turne it ¢opsie-turvy downe.” | I. Henry 1V,., Act 4, Scene 1. It is pretty evident, from the 16 within the last third of the sixteenth century, that our present ¢opsyturvy first emerged. Richard Stanyhurst used topsie turvy in 1582." Before a word beginning with ¢, carelessness would easily drop the final ¢ of a word immediately preceding ; and topsyturvy would, thus, readily be corrupted from topsetturvie. James Sanford” has the latter,® with the kindred expressions topset donne* and upset downe.’ Richard Hyrde® and Bp. Thomas Cooper,’ some time before, also have “ downe,” that Shakespeare had a feeling about topsyturvy different from ours. May not he have taken it for a corruption of topside turned? 1 Translation of Virgil, &c., p. 54 (ed. 1836). The year before, Barnabe Riche used topse torve, in his Farewell to Militarie Service (1581), p. 29 (ed. 1846). 2 Translation of Agrippa (1569). 3 Fol. 9 and 164. 4 Fol. 62. > Fol. 89, 98,176. For upside downe, see fol. 19 and 106. 6 «* For love fyrste of all troublethe and tossethe all thynge up sette downe at his luste, that hym selfe may beare the more outragious rule,” &c. The Instruction of a Christen Woman, &e. (1540), fol. 49 r. (ed. 1541). Dr. Richardson, the lexicographer, assigns to Ludovicus Vives the work here quoted. It is translated, as its very title states, from Vives’s Latin original. 7 In his amplified edition of Sir Thomas Elyot’s Dictionary (1559), under everto, he twice uses up set downe. On the first occasion, he displaces, by it, Elyot’s up so downe; on the second occasion, the phrase comes in an addition of his own ; and he has it under eversor, also. Under inverto, he alters Elyot’s uppe so downe into up syde downe. Under subverto, he allows Elyot’s up so downe to stand. Neither upset down nor upside down is used by Elyot himself, who published his Dictionary in 1538, 17 up set down; and so, as early as in 1508, has Alexander Barclay.’ It seems, then, that, in topsyturry, we have the words top and set; while its latter half may, or may not, have originated from turn, modified so as to furnish a balanced jingle to its first half.” As various writers have made known to us, up swa down, or up so down,—equivalent to ‘ up what down,’ for which Hampole and Gavin Douglas have up that is down,—was first altered to upsedown, the form in Wicliffe and in the Promptorium Parvulorum ; and, as late as 15387, some, I find, used, indifferently, wpsodown and upsedonn. Next after upsedown came upset donn,* 1 “Tournynge the lawes up set downe.” The Shyp of Folys of: the Worlde (ed. 1509), fol. 135 r.; or Vol. 2, p. 14, in Mr. T. H. Jamieson’s admirable edition (1874). ‘* All tourneth up set downe.” Egloges, sig. E 2 v. (ed. Humfrey Powell, \cire. 1548); or sig. A 5 r. (ed. 1570). “Transversed or turned up set downe.” Transla- tion of Sallust (2nd edition, by Pynson), fol. 17 r. 2 No one, I suppose, has any doubt that the latter member of the old arstversie is connected with versed, ‘inverted.’ In several writers besides Sanford, I have found topsetturvie, and also topsettorvey ; but the paper containing my references has gone astray. M. Burguy records an old French verb, torber, turber, which he defines by ‘‘troubler, déranger.” Its past participle, to7dé, turbé, is very like torvey, which, however, I do not know to have belonged, as a separate word, to our language. The change of 6 into v we have in deliver, from de and liberare ; in devil, from diabolus, diable ; and in our old descrive and Feverer, for describe and February. 3 It may not be supposed that the verb upset is herein included. Upset, in its anomalous current sense of ‘overset,’ is not, I appre- hend, a century old. Archdeacon Todd, in 1818, stigmatized it as ‘“‘alow word.” Its ancient signification, given it by Gower, Bp. B 18 an expression which, though it enjoyed but little’ practical favour, is important as having generated, through slovenliness of pronunciation, upside down.’ For some time before and after the acves- sion of Queen Elizabeth, upside down” had, as was to be expected, rivals in the older expres- sions; and, even in 1593, we see that Gabriell Harvey * returned, in his wpsydown, to the archaic Bale, &c., was, naturally enough, ‘set up;’ whereas it now means pretty much the reverse. The adjectival upset, in ‘upset price,’ carries us back to the original acceptation of the verb. 1 Comp. fadset, a common old corruption of falsehead, ‘ falsehood.’ Perhaps it was to the influence of the expression upside down that we owe our inside out. What was its polite predecessor? Sir Thomas Elyot, in his Dictionary (1538), gives, as a definition of invertere, “to turne in and out, after the vulgar speche.” Bp. Thomas Cooper, as already mentioned, expanded this work; and, in his edition of 1559, he has, under inversio, “a tournyng in and out ;” under inversus, “tourned in and out ;” and, under versare se, “he tourneth hym selfe im and out.” In his edition of 1579, Bp. Cooper wholly changes his definition of versare sc ; under inversus, he retains in and out; and, under inverto and inversio, he gives, instead of it, the inside out and inside out. «1 turne my name in and out.” Richard Edward, Damon and Pithias (1571). Stephano thus refers to his having called himself Onaphets. ‘*In and out” was, I find, long a stated definition of inversus. See, for it, Dr. Thomas Holyoke (1677), Dr. Adam Littleton (ed. 1684, 1703, &c.), Robert Ainsworth (1736), &c. &c. For some of my references touching the old phrase here spoken of, I am indebted to my friend Mr. Frederic Pincott, to whose kindness I owe it that I am able to give, in this monograph, several other particulars which it would else have wanted. 2 This was used, in translating the Psalms, 146, 9, in 1535 and 1537, by Bp. Miles Coverdale and Thomas Matthew, respectively. 3 Pierce's Supererogation, p. 95 (in Archaica, Vol. 2). Harvey’s upsydovm is a substantive. 19 upsedown.' This history of the genesis of our present phrase has never before, I believe, been stated; and it also is new to me, if any ‘one has pointed out that the first half of topsetturvie,’ eventually topsyturry, was, in all probability, sug- -gested by the upset in upset down, intermediate between wpsodown and upside down, 1 Upand down, for ‘ upside down,’ still used in Somersetshire, for instance, is, very likely, of much the sameageasupsedown. Ihave not, however, traced it further back than to the time of Queen Elizabeth. ‘* After that, againe, the Lumbards, and, with them, the Ger- maines,—where the imperiall triple crowne of Cesar yet remaines up and downe,—had the praise for many yeares together.” William Watson, A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions, &c. (ed. 1602) Preface, sig. A dr. The person who half recast Sir Thomas Malory’s La Mort Darthur in 1634, sometimes alters its ‘‘up so doune” to ‘‘up and downe.” One instance of this alteration is duly noticed by Mr. Thomas Wright, in his edition of 1858, Vol. 1, p. 221, foot-note 1. In Caxton’s edition of 1485, we find: ‘‘ Syre Launcelot charged so sore upon hym, that his hors reversed up so doune.”’ Mr. Wright, however, two pages after that just mentioned, and also in Vol. 3, pp. 101 and 325, prints, and without remark, “turned upside downe.” Here is great carelessness; for Caxton has, twice, ‘‘torned wp so doune,” and ‘‘torned up soo doune.” Again, in Vol. 2, p. 292, Mr Wright has ‘‘ tumbled. upside dewne,”’ without noticing that Caxton’s words are ‘‘felle up soo doune ;” and, once more, in Vol. 3, p. 163, he gives the blundered “ turned upsid-dowe,” instead of Caxton’s “torned up sov doune.” 2 Topseyle, in The Romance of the Chevelere Assigne, 1. 320, I do not know what to make of. As indicative of Dr. Johnson’s unfamiliarity with our older lite- rature, I may mention that he notices no predecessors of either topsyturvy or upside down. He, with all his successors in English lexicography, has omitted topsyturvied, used by so well-known a writer as Samuel Richardson. See Pamela, Vol. 2, p. 40 (ed. 1811). Add the adjective topsy- turvy, used by Chapman, in The Widdowes Teares (1612), Act 5. 20 To dilate through a volume, in evidence of the misapprehension of our older literature which has been taught by superficial scholarship, would not be a very arduous enterprise. Let me give a € . . specimen of what I mean, by drawing attention to two of Shakespeare’s several uses of a verb once not at all uncommon. Attack is unknown to Shakespeare; but, in attache, as where he writes ‘ attach’d with weari- ness,” ? we have its immediate predecessor.” And a second sense, as unsuspected as that just intimated, which he gives to attache, may well 1 The Tempest, Act 3, Sc. 3. Seealso J. Henry IV., Act 3, Se. 2. With the descendants of attache, namely, attach and attack, com- pare, backwards or forwards, arch and arc, bench and bank, chatile and cattle, ditch and dike, milk and milch, poach and poke, the old roche and rock, Belch came from belk ; beseech grew out of beseek ; match was preceded by make ; scot-free was altered from shot-free ; thatch, from thak ; &e. &e. 2 Sir Thomas Elyot writes, some time before Shakespeare: “The resydue.... are men attached with grevouse sickenesses,” &c. The Image of Governance (1544), fol. 43 v. See also fol. 44 v. Richard Huloet, in his Abecedarium, &c. (1552), gives “ attuched with sickness,” “ implicitus morbo.” Stanyhurst (1582), in his Translation, &e. (ut supra), has attached pretty often. “‘ With looves sweet poison atached.” P. 29. “ With trembling feareful atached.” P.35. “A feare then general mens mated senses atuched.” P. 39. ‘“ With sensibil horror atached.” YL. 51. “ For, to my ful seeming, with slumber I was not atached.” P. 68. ‘*Oure members slumber atached.” P. 81. “ With sweet slumber atached.” P.111. And Dekker writes, some time after Shakespeare : “The night has in it Unwholsome foges and blasts. To bed, my Lord, Least they attach your beautie.” The Wonder of a Kingdome (1636), Act 4. 21 be ‘impeach ;’ as in: ‘¢ My father was attachéd, not attainted.’? Further, there can hardly be The vague character of attache, when as yet we had neither attach, exactly as now used, nor attack, is well seen in a passage of Philemon Holland : “For exposed he was, and lay open to the accesse of as manie as sought the undoing of others, as being daungerously attached with two vices,” &c. ‘Translation of Ammianus Marcellinus (1609), p. 353. ‘* Daungerously attached with two vices” is a rendering of “ vitio gemino perniciose zmplicitus.” Lache, or teche, the substantive, recurred toin the next note, was, at one period, no less vague than attache. ‘ But the tale ne of hym deviseth no more here, saf only of a tecche that he hadde, that, whan he aroos, that he hadde the force and myght of the beste knyght that myght be founde, and, whan he com to the house of pryme, he doubled, and at the houre of tierce, also,” &c. Merlin (1450-1460 ?), pp. 181, 182 (ed. 1865, &.). See also pp. 462, 475. ‘“Worthynes, and good tatches, and good dedes are not only in arayment,” &c. Sir Thomas Malory, La Mort Darthur (1469), Vol. 1, p. 46 (ed. Southey). “ For he that gentyl is wylle drawe bym unto gentil tatches, and to folowe the custommes of noble gentylmen.” Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 250. See also Vol. 1, pp. 74, 84, 217. For an older authority, see Larly English Alliterative Poems, &c. (1864), p. 69. Of tache, the verb, I speak particularly in the next note. En- teched, in Chaucer's use, is simply ‘marked’: whether for good, or for evil, depends on the context. Entacched, in Merlin (ut supra), p. 288, seems to mean ‘ heaped up,’ and may be another form of en- tassed, at pp. 337, 410, cognate with entassement at p. 398; and tacched, at pp. 569, 593, 615, 636, signifies ‘ fastened.’ Caxton, as quoted at p. 192 of The Knight of La Tour-Landry (ab. 1372 %), writes: “The Devylle is subtyll to tempte the folke of the synne where he seeth them most entatched.” In William of Palerne, enteches occurs as a substantive. Sic Thomas More uses mistatch, for ‘mishandle,’ ‘mismanage.’ “There shold be consydered howe he had governed hys owne howsehold ; bycause he that had mystatched his wyfe and his chyldren were unmete fora gret cure.” A Dyaloge, &c., fol. 86 r. (ed. 1529). 17. Henry VI., Act 2, Scene 4. -The sense ‘impeach’ is given to attache by Lord Berners, in a book which, most probably, Shakespeare was well acquainted with : 22 a question, that, in the passage where the best editors now agree in reading, after the second “ Loke what I say: it is no mockery, but of trouth, if the pitieful “goddis now a daies did reise our predecessours fro death to lyfe, eyther they would not know us for theyr children, or elles attache us for fooles.” Zhe Golden Boke, &c. (1534), sig. Kk 8 r. (ed. 1546). Chapman, writing in 1603, makes one of his characters exclaim : “Lorenzo, my uncle, an old senator, one that has read Marcus Aurelius, Gesta Romanorum, The Mirror of Magistrates, &c., to be led by the nose, like a blind beare that has read nothing!” May Day, Act 8, Scene 1. The Golden Book is, no question, here in- tended by “Marcus Aurelius.” Such was its popularity, in the sixteenth century, that no fewer than seventeén editions of it ap- ‘peared, I find, before 1588, or within fifty-four years after it was first published. Attache, now attach, in its legal sense of ‘ arrest,’ ‘ seize upon,’ or else to mean ‘hold fast,’ is found in Bale, Bp. Thomas Cooper, Spenser, Shakespeare, Dekker, &c. &c. See also, for it, Richard Calle (1463), John Rysyng (1465), &c., in The Paston Letters, Vol. 2,.pp. 126, 199, 205, &c. (ed. 1872-1875): Udall, Apophthegmes (1542), fol. 119 r., 180 v., 224 r.: Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witcheraft (1584), pp. 20, 95, &e. &c. : Hakewill, An Apologie, &e. (1630), p. 508, ‘* But presently the consideration of my depart within an houre came to attach this new love, and ordain’d it either to dye or to be the most unfortunate that ever entred into a heart.” Ariana (1636), p. 26. See also p. 195. “« They attached him, and carried him into the fortresse.”” Jbid., paw: Another old sense of attach was ‘hamper,’ ‘hinder’ ‘Since the Fall, the bonds [of reprobation] have seazed upon men, and attatcht them assoone as they have had a being, so as they have lyen under the arrest, clogged with shackles and chaines, which, of themselves, they could never put of.” Henry Lawrence, Of our Communion and Warre with Angels (1646), p. 59. Florio, in his editions of 4 Worlde of Wordes published in 1598 and 1611, gives, among the definitions of the Italian attaccare, “to tacke, to attache.” Dr. John Cowell, in The Interpreter (1607), also writes attache. And so had written Huloet (1552), Baret (1580), and many other lexicographers. 23 quarto edition, attask’d,' the true lection is attacht, ‘impeached,’ ‘ blamed.’ ? Besides the substantive tache, ‘spot,’ ‘stain,’ ‘ taint,’ ‘ peculiarity,” &c., used by Chaucer, Langland, Earl Rivers, Lord Berners, Sir Thomas Elyot, &c., we formerly had the verb tache, ‘mark,’ ‘infect,’ whence attache, first as its synonym, and then meaning ‘impute a blot to,’ &e. Wele-tached, ‘well-dispositioned,’ occurs in The Book of The Knight of La Tour-Landry (ut supra), p. 18. “The trewest of this londé, and beste tacched of alle gode condi- ciouns.” Merlin (ut supra), p. 88. ‘‘And sayde, whan a kynge or a prynce is evyll tatched and vycyous, better is to them that have no knowlege of hym, than to those that be grettest mayster in his house.” Earl Rivers, The Dyctes and the Sayenges of the Philosophers (1477), sig. A4 v. (ed. 1528). “Tf he be tachyed with this inconvenyence, To dysdayne others counseyll and sentence, He is unwyse ; for oft a folys counsaylé Tourneth a wyse man to confort and avayle.’”’ Alexander Barclay, The Shyp of Folys, &c. (ed. 1509), fol. 29; or Vol. 1, p. 58, in Mr. T. H. Jamieson’s edition of 1874. ‘Of slouthys bosom out spryngeth every yll; And who that attachyed is with this offence, No vertuous dede he gladly shall fulfyll, But slepyth ay in idelnes and blynde neglygence.” Id., wid, (ed. 1509), fol. 206 ; or Vol. 2, p. 185, in Mr, Jamieson’s edition. 1 King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4: ‘You are much more attask'd for want of wisdom, Than prais’d for harmful mildness.” Alapt was first printed; but four copies of the second quarto edition of 1608 have attaskt. Of the guesses towards emendation of the word, ending with Mr. Collier’s inept attack’d,—a word which, _Iost certainly, Shakespeare never heard,—I spare to compile a catalogue. If we suppose that the correction of alapt was communi- cated orally, and was noted down by some unclerkly scribe, and that attach, in 1608,—when the spelling was attache,—still savoured so much of its French origin, as to be pronounced attash, we have only to suppose, additionally, in order to arrive at attaskt, that the printer mistook an h for a k. % Attack was unknown to Minsheu in 1617, and to Cockeram in 24 But I have entered into enough of detail, by way of introducing an examination of reliable. What I desire to impress, by the foregoing illustrations, is, chiefly, the haste with which people court the publicity of print, as unfledged or precipitate philologists. Conjecture, in discussions on lan- guage, is by no means to be discouraged; only it should not be put forth under a false character. In the domain of philology, a single fact is, ordinarily, worth a thousand speculations, Nor- is it, here, simply speculation obtruded as ascer- tained truth, that operates to beget false notions. With nine in ten of the occasional critics of 1626, The latter defines attach by “lay hands on.” Nor is attack in the edition of Cotgrave’s Dictionary which Howell published in 1650, nor even in Thomas Holyoke (1677). ButI find, in William Robertson’s Phraseologia Generalis (1681), p. 173: *‘ A sore sickness attached or attacked him... .. When the pestilence had attached, attacked, or seized upon one or two.” In the sixteenth century, and later, the ordinary predecessors of attack were assail, assault, attempt, attempt upon, and oppugn. Alex- ander Barclay, followed by Sir ‘Thomas More, several times uses invade. Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Henry Harington use offend, found in Ariana (1636), also; Henry Earl of Monmouth, this, and give upon, and give on upon. William Rowley uses onset : A Search for Money (1609), p. 31 (ed. 1840). Instead of our substantive, attack, Sir Henry Savile, Henry Earl of Monmouth, and others, have oppugnation. The Italian tacca, taccia, attacare, &e., the French tache, tacher, attacher, attaquer, &c., and our old attache, with attach, tack, sub- stantive and verb, attack, and the obsolete tache, ‘stain,’ and also ‘button,’ M. Burguy implicitly refers, in common, to the Old Norse taca, ‘seize,’ ‘take.’ M. Brachet is not so thorough as usual, in his treatment of attacher, attaquer, &c. 25 words who contribute their superficial views to newspapers and magazines, a declaration of per- sonal approval or disapproval, generally accom- panied by some audacious historical invention, is propounded as if it ought to be received as conclu- sive. The reader, by the time he reaches the end of this monograph, will be able to decide for him- self how far, at least as regards one particular expression, I am warranted in speaking as I have spoken of the unscientific philologizing which has recently become so rife. Would that philological philosophers were more common! And I mean, by a philosopher, one who, however much or how- ever little he may know and believe, indulges no credulity, and, above all, has got quit of the con- ceit that he is the centre of the universe, and a pattern for all mankind. It would have fared exceptionally with rediadle, if it had escaped being impugned as the invention of an American, ‘' Mr. Rawlinson has sometimes allowed this ungrammatical Americanism, which is sadly forcing its way into our language. ely- on-able is too gross; but reliable is absurd. T'rust- morthy is English.” Thus, in annotation on the words ‘‘as the Americans say, reliable,” we read in The Literary Churchman for 1860, p. 3. At p. 442 of the same volume, somebody is represented as ‘‘ probably more trustworthy, or, as our dread- ful cockneys say, reliable.” Intermediately, at p. 26 390, the expression “reliable conclusions,” and without apology, appears in an original critique. In the volume for 1862, p. 144, unreliable is adopted, as “a learned Americanism.” It is worth mentioning, that, at p. 446 of the volume for the previous year, the phrase “‘ reliable calcula- tion” had been dignified with admission into a lead- ing article. Finally, the volume for 1868 presents us, at p. 110, with wnreliability, applied to persons. In Notes and Queries, November 28, 1863, a writer who signs himself Vebna tells us, that reliable ‘‘ bids fair to become naturalized on this side the Atlantic.” The implication is unmis- takeable.’ ' Dr. E. A. Freeman, writing in 1864, spoke of proclivities and reliable as ‘‘ American corruptions of the language.” In 1871, reprinting this judgment, he added the foot-note : “It is, perhaps, worth noting, that, seven years ago, I looked on these ugly and needless words as Americanisms.” Historical Essays, Vol. 1, p. 316. Since he expounds, by ‘‘ Americanisms,” his “ American corrup- tions of the language,” he tells us that he formerly looked on these words as‘ being such “corruptions,” and intimates that his view of ' them has undergone a change. But what does he mean? That they were American productions, but had been naturalized, within seven short years, in England? Most probably ; for we may as- sume that he would not characterize as ‘‘ American corruptions of the language,” words which he knew to have had their birth in England,—one of them, centuries before he was born. And, further, there is nothing to show that he was better informed about their history at the later, than at the earlier, date of his progress in philological knowledge. His old view he thinks may be, “ per- haps, worth noting.” If so, it is no less a matter of public in- terest, that, in 1871, he had not emerged from his strange ignorance of 1864. For proclivity, the Dictionaries quote Bishop Hall, Bishop Bram- 27 An anonymous contributor to The Daily News of December 26, 1874, writes: ‘“‘The frequent condemnation of reliable is, probably, due, not so mauch to any inherent malformation in the word itself, as to its presumed American origin, If it were more generally considered, that many of the apparently most objectionable ‘ Yankeeisms’ are, in reality, English archaisms exported in the seven- teenth century,—being, in fact, instances of our American cousins’ being Anglis ipsis Angliores,— unthinking prejudices of this kind would be less prevalent.” According to Dr. Latham, in his deplorable edition of Johnson’s Dictionary: ‘This word, commoner in conversation than in writing, is, probably, more used in America than in Great Britain; though of its having originated in America there is no proof.” Be reliable how bad soever, it would be hard to prove that Americans employ it more than Englishmen ; and that which seems, to Dr. Latham, a probability, is such, it may be pre- sumed, merely on the persuasion of sinister pre- occupation.’ As to its age and the place of its hall, and Wotton. Other authorities for it are Abel Redevivus, Hobbes, and Henry More, in the seventeenth century; with Ber- nard de Mandeville and William Godwin, in the last century ; and Sir Walter Scott, in the present century. 1 Something of the same spirit as Dr. Latham’s transpires through the title-page of a work begun, in 1863, by Dr. EB. A. 28 birth, here, again, it would be rash to make cate- gorical assertions.’ Our forefathers may have carried it over with them from the old country ; or one of them may have invented it in the new; but evidence to either of these effects has not, to my knowledge, yet been brought forward, The earliest occurrence of the word which I have met with dates in 1800, when Coleridge, in The Freeman: ‘The History of Federal Government from the Foun- dation of the Achaian League to the Disruption of the United States.” « 1 'T'wo years ago, in my revision of a paper on English Imperfects Passive, I quoted a writer who had laid down that they came into existence in a.p. 1815; and, in refutation of this statement, I showed that Southey used such a form in 1795; Coleridge, in 1797 ; &c. &c. The last-named author used such a form once in 1795, and twice in 1796, | now find. But here are two instances con- siderably older, the latter of them by James Harris, the philologist, and the earlier of them by his wife. “There ts a good opera of Pugniani’s now being acted.” 1769. Letters of the First Eurl of Malmesbury, &c., Vol. 1, p. 180. “Sir Guy Carlton was four hours being examined at the Bar of the House.” 1779. Jbid., Vol. 1, p. 410. For a use of the present passive participle, which naturally led up to constructions like ts being built, 1 brought forward a passage from Sir Charles Grandison. Here are two more similar passages, one of which is nearly a century prior to Richardson’s celebrated novel. ** Acting and being acted upon by others, these varieties of things appeare in the world.” Henry More, An Antidote against Atheisme (ed. 1653), p. 26. : “He was taken ill in my company, at a concert at the Duchess of Marlborough’s, and died two days after, holding the fair Duchess by the hand, and being fed, at the same time, with a fine fat chicken; thus dying as he had lived, indulging his pleasures.” lady M. W. Montagu (1726), Letters, &c. (ed. 1837), Vol. 2, p. 201, « 29 Morning Post of February 18, used it to qualify “pledge.” + Coleridge, at subsequent periods, used it again and again;* in 1817, he ventured reliability ;* and he has unreliableness, also, Similar inconsistency, touching reliable, to that of The Literary Churchman is shown by The Saturday Review, Here, to begin, are two ex- tracts from it. ‘‘ We wish, however, Mr. Shirley would not write such Jupiter English as ‘ reliadle evidence,’ which is quite as bad as Dr. Vaughan’s “localities” of Wycliffe and Alby.” Vol. 11,* p. 319. ‘One more instance we could hardly have believed, were not our witnesses to it what we should call trustworthy, and what, in literary English, is called reliable.” Vol. 12,° p. 582. Stull, in Vol. 11, we find, at p. 305, in the very number of the journal where rediad/e is sneered at, 1“The Emperor of Russia may have announced the restoration of monarchy, as exclusively his object. This is not considered as the ultimate olject, by this country, but as the best means, and most reliable pledge, of a higher object, viz., our own security, and that of Europe; but we do not confine ourselves to this, as the only possible means.” Essays on His Own Times, p. 296. This is from a speech by William Pitt, as manipulated by Coleridge. From the contemporary reports of the speech, which I have taken the trouble to hunt out, it does not appear that Pitt hazarded reliable ; and Coleridge, in fathering it on him, took a rather unwarrantable liberty. 2 As in his notes on Southey’s Life of Wesley, Vol. 2, p. 136 (ed. 1864); and in his Letters, &c., Vol. 2, p. 78 (ed. 1836). 3 In his Biographia Literaria (ed. 1847), Vol. 1, p. 63. 4 1861. 5.1861. 30 “reliable labour ;”? and, at pp. 98, 105, and 495, reliable qualifies “information,” “‘ security,” and “prig;” besides which, at p. 146, reliability is used of “words.” Again, in Vol. 12, reliable qualifies ‘‘ information,” at pp. 87 and 420 ; “statistics,” at p. 206; “thing,” at p. 486; and, in addition, “‘ excursion-trains ” are spoken of as unreliable, at p, 238; and reliability is predicated of “relations,” at p. 419. These references will, I suppose, suffice, out of the hundred and upwards, older and more recent, which I have catalogued. And yet a critic in The Saturday Review of the 19th of last December,’ has seen fit to write as follows : ““We have always had a strong conviction, that an educated Englishman,—that is, an Englishman who has been at school, and is supposed to have been educated,— who, can bring himself to use, we cannot say the word, for it is not a word, but that absurd and stupid vulgarism, reliable, must have a screw loose somewhere ; and a curious illustration of this theory has just occurred. The. other day, the Rev. H. Temple West wrote a letter, to say that a statement which he had made, and the truth of which had been challenged, was based on authority which was “eminently reliable.” What Mr. West meant, and, if he had been able to write the English language correctly, would have said, was, no doubt, that his information rested on authority upon which he thought he could rely: but he nade the mistake of applying to this authority an adjective 1 Vol. 38 (1874), p. 795. 3l which, less improperly, might bave been applied to himself. ‘A reliable person,’ if such a phrase is admissible at all, is, clearly, ‘a person who is able to rely,’ and not ‘a person who is capable of being relied upon.’ Mr West would, cer- tainly, seem to have a remarkable faculty of reléadzlity ; though the visionary nature of what he. relies upon has been only too clearly demonstrated. He has now had brought home to him, in a particularly unpleasant way, the difference between reliable and trustworthy ; and it may be hoped that both his syntax and his manners will thereby be improved.” There might be some difficulty in coming toa decision as to which is most conspicuous in this extract, bad taste and insolence, ignorance of the highly respectable suffrages that may be- appealed to in defence of the word reprobated,—especially those supplied by the pages of the journal which now condemns what it so long supported,—or unacquaintance with English philology. For who that is entitled to a hearing on a philological ques- tion would ever maintain that reliable is, analo- gically, subjective, rather than objective, and, what is worse still, that it is so without room for an alternative ;* that is to say, that it ought to match 1 As much beside the truth is Mr. John Beames, who, in a feeble and commonplace polemic against reliadle, sets forth, that “the Latin suffix -bilis, which originally meant ‘able to do,’ is now generally used in the passive sense of ‘able to be done’: amabilis, aimable, amiable do not now mean ‘able to love,’ but ‘able to be loved,’ ‘that which may be loved.’” Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India, Vol. 2 (1875), p. 107. Anything more inexact than this could not well be conceived ; 32 with relying on, and that it cannot match with relied on? 1 Well-nigh on a par with this are the objections raised against reliable by Dr. Latham, in continua- tion of what has already been quoted from him. After speaking of trustworthy, as being ‘ the or- dinary (approximate) substitute for it,’ he goes on to say: “More useful than correct, the word is faulty in two respects. To be perfectly unobjectionable, the form in -able (penetrable is a typical word) should have the first and the writer says, or hints, throughout, what he could not possibly prove. Indeed, he carelessly implies that Latin is a living speech, in which amabilis has changed its original sense. And when did amabilis ever signify “able to love,” or aught but ‘ worthy of being loved’? As Archdeacon Hare says, ‘‘ The main part of our adjec- tives in -ble come, as everybody knows, from Latin verbals in -bilés ; . and, like their originals, they have, mostly, a passive signification.” : Fragments, &c., IL, p. 72. We read, further: ‘‘The monstrous modern word reliable, which is creeping into our language, in spite of protest, can have no meaning at all.” Even if reliable were, as it is here assumed to be, wholly unanalogical,—which it is not,—convention might, surely, avail to save it from having ‘‘no meaning at all.” Mr. Beames requires to be told, it appears, that no word is significant ob- jectively. 1 As a blunderer, the Saturday-Reviewer has not the merit of originality, even. ‘Such a word as reliable ought to mean ‘dis- posed to rely upon,’ and can only be applied, properly, to a person who is apt or inclined to rely upon others.” Votes and Queries, December 26, 1863. ‘The signature appended to this is F. GC. H. What is here stated with all clearness is meant, perhaps, by the middle clause of the following enigmatical enunciation: ‘* Reli- able, instead of ‘trustworthy,’ is a malappropriation of a good word, now as common in England as in the United States.” Professor Schele De Vere, Americanisms, &c. (1872), p. 531. 33 element Latin, and should be exactly rendered by the words ‘capable of being,’ followed by a passive participle. Now, rely (by dtself) has no passive participle at all, but requires the preposition (or) to complete the sense. But, in the word under notice, this preposition is wanting ; nor would such a word as relied-on-able be admitted as an inprovement.” Penetrable, we are told, “‘is a typical word.”’ Though, on Dr. Latham’s theory, notable would be so, with penetrable’ it is otherwise. This, with reference to its form, we either borrowed from the French, or modified from the Latin; and the 1 Similar are appreciable, calculable, communicable, demonstrable, deprecable, execrable, explicable, negotiable, propitiable, separable, ter- minable, &c. &e. As a rule, it is only when a verb is based on a Latin supine, that, to construct an allied adjective in -able, we imitate, for shortness, the classical form which it has, or would have had, as evolved from an infinitive. Yet many such adjectives which have been proposed are of rare occurrence. Here are a few. Accommodable. Barrow, Watts. Aggravable. Henry More. Mystery of Godliness (ed. 1660), pp. 491, 526, and elsewhere. Lapsableness. Ibid., p. 241. Irrelapsable. Ibid., p. 503. Lap- sability. Annotations upon ‘Lux Orientalis, &¢. (1682-8), p. 80. Joseph Glanvill has iapsable. It seems that one of the first lexicographers to notice lapeable— better written lapsible,—was Dr. Worcester, who entered it in his Dictionary, in 1846, as used by ‘‘ Dr. H. More.” Instead of this authority for the word, Dr. Webster’s editors substitute—Dr. Web- ster having had ‘‘ Cudworth,”—“ Sir T. More.” One would like to know where the word occurs in the writings of Sir Thomas. Like lapsability is Coleridge’s lability. Innascible. Bp. A. P. Forbes, Explanation of the Nicene Creed, p. 133. Compare alible, exseible, defectible, fluxible, possible, risible, and many like words. 63 Lastable, ‘lasting.’ Latrable,’ ‘having the faculty or power of barking.’ Aferchantable, ‘engaged in traffic.’ Chettle.® Perspiradle, ‘ emitting perspira- tion.’ Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne. Prevailadle,* ‘powerful.’ Meric Casaubon. Purveyadle, ‘ provi- dent.’ Chaucer. Removadle, ‘able to go from one place to another.’ Chaucer. Resembladle,? ‘like.’ Gower, Chaucer, Lydgate, Norden. Returnable,® 1 One hears this occasionally from the vulgar in Suffolk. 2 In his Divine Dialogues (1668), Vol. 2, p. 530, Henry More uses latrability, of dogs. Latrability supposes latrable, which would adapt to our spelling the Jatrabilis of Celius Aurelianus. Like latrabilis is the Low Latin mugibilis. Dean Mansel writes: ‘‘ Men are rational, and horses, Aénnible.”’ Prolegomena Logica (1851), p. 189. 3 In his Englandes Mourning Garment (1603), merchantable, as qualifying ‘‘townes,” must, perhaps, be referred to the old verb neuter merchand or merchant, ‘trafiic’; and so in Verstegan, who has ‘‘ merchantable trades.” The ordinary merchantable, ‘fit to be bought or sold,’ may well come from merchant, the substantive. 4 Prevail has been used as a verb active. ‘‘It shalle prevaylle the gretely.” Sir Thomas Malory, La Morte Darthur (1469), Vol. 2, p. 248 (ed. Southey). See also Vol. 1, p. 256; Vol. 2, p. 432. “‘Nought shulde prevayle me.” John Heywood, 4 Mery Play &c. (printed in 1533), p. 4 (undated modern edition). Lord Burghley (1586) strangely uses prevail for ‘prevail upon.’ “Morgan prevailed hir to renew hir intelligence with Babyngton.” Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., First Series (ed. 1825), Vol. 3, p. 6. In the work just quoted from, Vol. 1, p. 9, Edward the Fourth, when Earl of Marche, and his brother, use, in a joint letter, pre- vail as a substantive, for ‘success.’ 3 Archdeacon Todd misdefines this word; and Dr. Webster's Editors also misunderstand it. 6 John Dolman, in A Myrrour for Magistrates (ed. 1563), sig. O 3v., has irreturnable, ‘not to return’ : «Forth, irreturnable, flyeth the spoken word, Be hit in scoffe, in earnest, or in bourd,” 64 “being to come back.’ William Cowper. Sem- blable,) ‘resembling.’ Gower, Chaucer, Sir John Fastolf, Sir Thomas Malory, Alexander Barclay, Sir Richard Wingfield, Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas Elyot, Bp. William Barlow, Raphe Robynson, James Sanford, Dr. Thomas Coghan, Whetstones, Shakespeare, Dr. Donne, Richard Bernard, Hol- land, Dr. Thomas Wright, John Panke, Hakewill, Bishop Sanderson, Prynne, Fuller, Sir Richard Baker, Sir Thomas Browne, James Howell, ke. &e. Sortable,’ ‘suitable.’ Bacon, Hakewill, Bishop Sanderson, James Howell. Unceaseable, ‘not to cease.’ Dekker.’ Un/failable, ‘ infallible.’ Bishop Hall. Unrelentable, ‘unrelenting.’ Myles Davies. Vailable,* ‘helpful.’ Gower, Chaucer, John Duke of Norfolk,’ Earl Rivers.° 1 From the French sembler, anglicized in the term semble, now confined to lawyers. Semble occurs in The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry ; and Udall has it often. Of semble, as a contrac- tion of semblable, I have found one instance. * 2 This sortable is, I apprehend, to be deduced from our old verb neuter sort, ‘be suitable.’ The French sortable, which has the same signification, is taken to be allied to the substantive sorte, ‘kind.’ 3 Dramatic Works (ed. 1873), Vol. 1, p. 269. We there find “ zealous prayers and unceasable wishes.” See incessable, p. 62, supra. Apparently, it isa similar word which John Russe (1465) uses, where he writes of “the dayli contynewyng maleyse of youre zn- sessiabyll enemyes.” See The Paston Letters, Vol. 2, p. 180 (ed. 1872-1875). But perhaps insatiable is intended. + Our old verb vazl, ‘help,’ was active as well as neuter. Roger Ascham changes vailable into valiable. > Ina petition written in 1453. See The Paston Letters, Vol. 1, p. 260 (ed. 1872-1875). Gabriell Harvey (1580) has countervailable. See Ancient Critical Essays, Vol. 2, p. 283. And so has Stanyhurst (1582), Translation, &e. (ut supra), p. 44. Some of the words in this paragraph may, not impossibly, 65 Adjectives in -adle which have sprung from sub- stantives are such as actionable, ‘ punishable’ companionable,” ‘social’; conscionable,® ‘ reason- have been grounded on substantives. Such are bowable, Zamentable, lapsable, &e. &c., or wherever the base is not incontestably a verb. Of adjectives thus doubtful as to origin, I have spoken already, and I speak at length further on. Accompanable, amable, congustable, corrumpable, defatigable, de- siderable, exorable, exuperable, inconjectable, ineluctable, inenarrable, infatigable, inopinable, insanable, irremeable, maniable, mirable, opin- able, optable, proviable, ravisable, redevable, redonable, remeable, sanable, spectable, sperable, tactable, trepassable, vituperable, and the like, Gallic, or Latinistic, bestrew certain of our old authors. Alexander Barclay often uses serviable, ‘assistant’; and even so late a writer as Myles Davies has serviableness, for ‘serviceableness.’ Dr. Whewell, in his abridged translation of Grotius, Vol. 1, p. 256, renders the quasi-Latin occupabilis by occupable. It may be toler- ated as a technicality. Imprenable, borrowed from the French, once was not uncommon. Hence, by strange corruption, came our impregnable, which looks as if connected with impregnate, but is, in point of fact, not at all related to it. Philemon Holland has prenable. Southey uses the substantive remainables. The Life and Cor- respondence, &c., Vol. 1, p. 197. And Coleridge has the tedious unsympathizability, ‘inability to sympathize.’ The Literary Re- mains, &c., Vol. 1, p. 144. Our rhematic adjectives in -able which are not based on English verbs, are such as affable, amenable, amicable, applicable, arable, Sriable, malleable, portable, &e. &e. 1 The factitious actionabilis has a different sense, ‘ efficacious.’ £ Of old, our word was compaignable, companable, cumpynable, compenabyll, &c., modified from the French. 3 This and unconscionable,—for which William Lithgow uses inconscionable, and Otway, wunconsctous,—come, very irregularly, from conscience. Full as heteroclite are conscientional, used by John Gaule, Ilis-uavrla (1652), p. 103; and Joseph Glanvill’s equinoctional, in Scepsis Scientifica (ed. 1665), p. 61. At a time when the proper formation of words was very little cared for, in order to construct parishioner and practitioner, their Norman-derived antecedents were so modified as to yield bases like E 66 able’; creditable, ‘reputable’; customable, ‘sub- ject to duty’; equitable,? ‘just’; exceptionable,* ‘liable to exception’; fushionable,* ‘ conforming to fashion’; hospitable,’ ‘kind to strangers’; im- that of commissioner, extortioner, petitioner, and the old possessioner. See my Recent Exemplifications, &c., where I might have mentioned logitioner, once somewhat used for logician ; and pragmatitioners, found in A World of Wonders (1607), p. 129, as a translation of the French pragmaticiens. Towards the genesis of conscionable, in avoidance of the dissonant conscienceable, conscience was, it seems, treated after the manner of parishen, praticien, &c. Samuel Hieron has conscionless, ‘unconscionable.’ Works (ed. 1624, &c.), Vol. 2, p. 257. Just as irrecular as Gaule’s conscientional seems to be the Latin meridionalis. Was it suggested by septentrionalis, on a false analogy ? 1 Jeremy Collier uses uncreditable very often; and he has zn- creditable, also. The former occurs in Hammond, Paley, &c. &c. 2 As regards this and many other words common to English and French, it may be questionable whether the two languages did not develop equivalent results independently of mutual influence. Our equitable, charitable, veritable, &c., looked at closely, are very free formations. JLibertadble, for ‘free,’ would be exactly like them. The analogy of rationabilis would require, in Latin, equitatabilis, &e. 3 Add uneaceptionable, for which, and for unexceptionably, as used by Mr. Ruskin and Dr. Johnson, see my Modern English. — 4 Dr. Donne—Poems, &c. (ed. 1633), p. 360,—has fashional, which is like seasonal, soon to be remarked on. Dekker has fashionate, in the same sense. The Gulls Hornbook (1609), p. 94 (ed. 1812). Sir Richard Steele has wnfashioned, for ‘ unfashionable.’ The Spectator, No. 154. For out-offashioned, used by Gay, War- burton, Fielding, and Garrick, see my Modern English. Samuel Hieron has fashionable and unfashionable from the verb Jashion, ‘shape.’ Works (ed. 1624, &.), Vol. 1, pp. 236, 238. ° An adoption of the old French adjective. The Latin is hospi- talis, from hospes, ‘guest,’ &c. Agreeable thereto, in form, is our old adjective hospital, uséd by Richard Haydocke, Philemon Hol- and, James Howell, John Hales, Thomas Fuller, &c. &e. Sir Philip Sidney and Philemon Holland have wnhospital, also; and Dr. Henry More used inhospital as late as 1668. Sir Thomas Elyot, and, more than a century later, John Smith, 67 pressionable, ‘susceptible of impression’; mar- riageable,* ‘fit for marriage’; oljectionable, ‘liable to objection’; peaceable,” ‘having peace’; per- sonable? ‘handsome’; pitiable,* ‘deserving of pity’; rateable, ‘liable to taxation’; reasonable,® —in The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvail'd (1657), p. 260,—have rationable, and Phillip Stubbes has irrationable, for rational and trrational. The latter words, as compared with the former, follow classical Latin. Jrrationabilities. Feltham. The base of all is ratio. Of neither amicable nor amical is the Latin original of the golden age; and the same is the case with the originals of both veniable and venial. Vegetable and vegetal—the latter of which Mr. Herbert Spencer even now prefers,—are, respectively, from impure Latin and from factitious. Fossible we did well to supersede by fossil. Like fossible is ductible, which Feltham uses repeatedly. Our old doctble,—used by Richard Dolman (1602), Lithgow, Henry Earl of Monmouth, Milton, Dr. Timothy Puller, Defoe, &c.,—no less than docile, represents ancient Latin. But where did Dr, Worcester discover docible in the sense of “that may be learnt, capable of being learnt’? Or does he, like many New Englanders, use learn for ‘teach’? Sed hoc extra callem. + Udall, recurring to the French, uses marriable and unmariable. Levins inserts the former in his Manipulus Vocabulorum (1570). Coleridge once uses it. Literary Remains, Vol. 4, p. 150. 2 Imitated, probably, from the French paisible, which form occurs in English long before peaceable. 3 This word is older than it gets credit for being. “Ye be per- sonable ; and, peraventure, yowr beyng ones in the syght of the mayde,” &c. Sir John Paston (1467), in The Paston Letters, Vol. 2, p. 800 (ed. 1872-1875). In the next century, personable was used by Sir Thomas Elyot; and it occurs in New Custome (1573), Act 2, Scene 2; and in Stanyhurst (1582), Translation, &c. (ut supra), p. 154, Philemon Holland has unpersonable, for ‘ ugly.’ 4 It may be that this was imitated from pitoyable, Old French, and still current. > Dr. Webster’s Editors wrongly seem to think rateable, as here defined, peculiar to Connecticut. ° 6 Chaucer, and also Dan Michel,—in The Ayenbite of Inwyt,— 68 ‘rational,’ &c.; saleadle,s ‘marketable’; season- able, ‘opportune’; serviceadle,* ‘advantageous’ ; sizeable,* ‘of due or considerable size’; statutable,’ ‘according to statute’; treasonable, ‘ characterized by treason’; veritable,’ ‘true.’ From among obsolete or rare words of the class in question,® have renable, which is as unobvious a corruption as the old ingram, from ignorant. In connexion with reasonable, see note 4 to p. 66, supra. 1 Lord Byron uses the substantive unsaleables. > The Rev. Robert Burton, with a few later writers,—as the Rev. James Martineau, Miscellanies (1852), p. 87,—has the hybrid seasonal, The Anatomy of Melancholy (ed. 1806), Vol. 2, p. 121. Sational, as regards form, would answer to the analogical factitious adjective of satio. Scasonal would be paralleled by reasonal. 3 This old word is, possibly, from the French. In the form ser- visable, it occurs in many old authors. + Lord Shaftesbury and Steele use wnsizeable. There are many words in -able,—sizeadle being one, and blame- able, loveable, saleable, tameable, &c., being others,—which the world refuses to spell after the Dictionaries. Our lexicographers, when they learn to conform to reason, and honestly record the.verdicts of good usage, will give as exceptions a whole host of spellings which they now condemn, explicitly or constructively, as mistakes of ignorance. Perhaps it would be an improvement not to drop a final e, in any case, before -able. The historico-etymological argument for its general rejection under such circumstances, like that argu- ment in its ordinary applications, increases the difficulty of ortho- graphy, without yielding any adequate compensation. * The verb active statute is used by Abp. Maxwell, Sacrosancta Regum Majestas (ed. 1644), p. 43. But it never produced statutable. 5 We must go to the French, or to the Latin, to see that the base of this word is a substantive. 7 On viable, which appears to be coming into professional use, Ihave remarked in my Modern English, p. 181. Viability goes with it. See, for the latter word, Dr. Henry Maudsley’s Body and Mind (1870), p. 44. + § Not only obsolete and rare, but impossible,—until we reduce a cardinal to a cardo, ‘hinge,’—is Hamon L'Estrange’s cardinable 69 I specify what will, perhaps, be deemed a sufficient number. zradle, ‘suitable to be sung.’ James Howell.? Argumentable, ‘capable of being argued.’ Dr. Chalmers. Chapmanadle, ‘saleable.’ Thomas Nash. Clergyable, ‘entitled to benefit of clergy.’ Sir William Blackstone, &. Cluddable, ‘ suited to belong to a club.’ Dr. Johnson. Commoditable, ‘fit for purchase or sale.’ Joseph Richardson. Commonable,’ ‘which may feed on a common.’ Sir William Blackstone. Communionable, ‘ ad- missible to communion.” Mr. Isaac Taylor. Companiable, ‘sociable.’ Bacon, Feltham, Bp. Sanderson, Complexionable,? ‘ temperamental.’ in ‘“‘cardinable reply.” An Answer to the Marques of Worcester’s Last Paper, &c. (1651), The Epistle to the Reader. Several -writers of L’Estrange’s century use cardinalitial and cardinalitian, as adjectives of cardinal. These words, which never had much vogue, were suggested by the old Italian cardinalitio. '‘ But Hamon L’Estrange was somewhat addicted to unlawful verbal coinage. In God's Sabbath, &c. (1641), p. 31, he calls ‘patrons of prolepsis’ antictparians ; and, in the Preface to The Reign of King Charles (ed. 1656), he uses the substantive enormitan, for ‘ wretch.’ 1 Familiar Letters (1632), p. 818 (ed. 1713). 2 Dr. Johnson further quotes Bacon for commonable, * what is held in common’ ; and ‘commonable rights’ isa well-known expression in legal language. Compare this commonable, as a formative, with amicabilis and the factitious practicabilis. 3 This is implied by complexionably, which has actually been used. ‘For heads that are disposed unto schisme, and com- plecionably propense to innovation, are naturally disposed for a community, nor will be ever confined unto the order or ceconomy of one body,” &. Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (ed. 1645), p. 15. Donne, in his Pseudomartyr (1610), pp. 12, 128, has the verb active complexion ; but it never became adopted English. . 70 Customable,' ‘habitual.’ John Pympe,’ Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas Elyot, Ascham, Bale, Roberte Recorde, Dr. Gregory Martin, Dr. Thomas Coghan, Thomas Heywood. Damageable,’ ‘ injurious,’ Earl Rivers, Lord Berners, Richard Bernard, Dr. John Dee, Camden, SirN. Brent, Nicholas Ferrar, Edward Dacres, Henry Lawrence, Burke. Destructionable, ‘committing destruction.’ Dr. Henry More.* Edu- cationable, ‘proper to be educated.’ Mr, Isaac Taylor. LExtortionable, ‘extortionate. William Lithgow, Duchess of Kingston.® Jsswable, ‘ when 1 The Old French adjective was preceded by a substantive. Our extinct accustomable, used by Fabyan, Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas Wilson, Lyly, Richard Haydocke, Donne, Philemon Holland, Brath- wait, Wye Saltonstall, Heylin, and in A World of Wonders (1607), p. 851, &e. &c., seems to have been of indigenous growth, from the verb neuter accustom. : ? Writing in 1477. See The Paston Letters, Vol. 8, p. 185 (ut supra). And the word occurs still earlier, in An Old English Chro- nicle, &c. (before 1471), p. 50 (ed. 1856). 3 Dommage, a substantive, preceded, in French, dommageable, still used, and in the sense of our old adjective. + Mystery of Godliness (ed. 1660), p. 269. More adopts the word from a fanatical work which he there comments on. ‘‘ He that has the seven deadly sins in him is possest of the seven horriblest and destructionablest devils,” The First Exhortation of H. N. to his Children, &¢. (1655), p. 228. This book is an anonymous translation. é 5 This notorious woman wrote to Foote, Aug. 13, 1775: “I know too well what is due to my own dignity, to enter into a compromise with an extortionable assassin of private reputation.” Memotrs of Samuel Foote, &., by William Cooke (1805), Vol. 1, p. 205, It would have been well for her ladyship’s reputation, if extor- tionable had been the only irregular progeny which she was taxable with the maternity of. I refer to the rumour which, when men- 71 issues are made up.’ Sir William Blackstone, &c. &e. Justiciable,' « proper to be examined in courts of justice.” Jeremy Bentham. Knowledgeable,’ ‘well-informed.’ Leiswradle,* ‘leisurely,’ &e. Puttenham, Bishop Sanderson, Sir Thomas Browne. Magazineable, ‘ fit for a magazine.’ Leigh Hunt.* Merciable,’ ‘merciful,’ Roberd Manning, Gower, Chaucer, Earl Rivers, Lydgate. Oathable, ‘fit to be put on oath.’ Shakespeare. Odouwrable, ‘ fra- grant.’ Puttenham. Papadie,® ‘that may be made a pope.’ Lydgate.’ Partable, ‘having a share.’ tioned by her to Lord Chesterfield, drew from him a reply much more witty than consolatory, but too trite to bear repetition. 1 This has long been French, from the Low Latin justitiabilis. The dictionaries give justiceable, also. 2 This word, common in the speech of the English vulgar, now and then appears in print. It is put into the mouth of a butler by the anonymous author of Artist and Craftsman (ed. 1860), p. 279. It is also recorded in A Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect (1875), by the Rev. W. D. Parish. 3 Hooker, Bishop Sprat, and others have the adverb leisurably. 4 «Lord B. has given power to my brother John to get all his magazineable MSS. out of the hands of Murray.” Relics of Shelley (1862), p. 113. 5 Alexander Barclay has unmerciable. ® This word I find in The History of the Cardinals, &c. (1670), pp. 282, 298. At p. 298, it renders papabilio, an Italian synonym of which is papabile. in French there is papable, on which M. Bescherelle remarks : “‘ A notre avis, on ne peut pas plus dire ‘un cardinal papable’ qu’on ne dirait ‘un électeur députable,’ ‘un prétre évéguadle.’’”’ The Low Latin substantive papabilitas is on record. Papability, if any one has used it, has a mate in pupilability, used by Sterne. See his 7ristram Shandy, Vol. 4, Chapter 1. 7 Add The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry (about 13722), p. 61 (ed. 1868); and The Payne and Sorowe of Evyll Maryage (15352), p. 17 (ed. 1840). 72 Pasturable, ‘fit for food,’ &. Sir William Black- stone.! Powerable, ‘powerful.’ Sir Henry Sav- ile? Gabriell Harvey, Camden, William Wat- son, Holland, Hieron, Sir Edward Hoby. Pro- portionable, ‘symmetrical.’* Shapeable,* ‘ shapely.’ De Foe. Truthable, ‘genuine.’ Thomas Nash. Unadditionable,” ‘not worthy of being added.’ Myles Davies. Uncartadble, ‘ unfit for the passag of a cart.’ Richard Franck.® : Regarding not a few of our words in -adle, of all ages, it is by no means of obvious determina- tion whether they had their rise from substantives, 1 Blackstone uses pasturable to qualify ‘‘hay.” Pastorable qualifies ‘‘plain” and “country,” as used by William Lithgow. The Totall Discourse, &c. (1632), pp. 292, 865. Lithgow here spells after the pronunciation of hig day. Richard Hodges gives pasture and pastor among “such words as are alto- gether alike in sound.” Zhe Plainest Directions for the True Writing of English, &c. (1649), p. 15. Rare adjectives in -able which Lithgow uses are seen in his burdenable, inexprimable, irrepugnable, repugnable, uniformable (for uniform). * He has powerableness, also. And so have Heylin, &c. &c. 3 It is only from the substantive proportion that proportionable, in this sense, can duly be derived. Lady Mary W. Montagu thus uses the adjective, of a dwarf, in her Letters and Works (ed. 18387), Vol. 1, p. 326. 4 This word is still heard now and then. 5 As, however, the user of this word preferred the verbs colla- tion and collection to the ordinary collate-and collect, it is possible that he grounded his unadditionable on the assumed verb addition. He has the verb active prelection, also. Instead of his verbs edition and reedition, we had not, till some time after his day, edié and reedit. 6 To qualify “cawses,” ¢.¢, ‘causeways.’ Northern Memoirs 1694), p. 195. 73 or from verbs.’ I particularize some such. Ac- 1 Among such words, now in use, are accountable, answerable, changeable, colourable, laughable, marketable, merchantable, notable, noticeable, palatable, profitable, remediable, traceable, &c. &e. Proportionable, which is no longer much favoured, was of our own coining. Proportional has ancestors in Latin of the silver age, and in French. Valuable we seem to have made from value, and not to have modified from the French valable, which hasanother meaning. Dr. Webster's Editors name, with our adjective, the “Fr. valuable.” Where did they discover it ? Dr. Thomas Wright, in The Passions of the Minde in Generall, p. 349 (ed. 1620), and Feltham, use inealwable for ‘beyond all value.’ Mrs. Aphra Behn, and also Lord Clarendon,—in A Brief View and Survey of The . . . Leviathan (1676), p. 55,—have unvaluadble in the sense of ‘valueless.’ Dr. Thonias Wright, just named, and Nicholas Breton, have unprizeable, for ‘beyond value.’ Shakespeare uses it for ‘worthless.’ John Gaule has prizeadle. Measurable, ‘moderate,’ &c., as in Chaucer, Lydgate, Alex- ander Barclay, Sir Thomas Elyot, Dr. Thomas Coghan, Robert Southwell, Sir John Harington, Henry More, Sir Richard Steele ; and mensurable, in the sense of ‘just,’ given it by Dr. Donne; with the old treatable, ‘ moderate,’ ‘ placable,’ &c., used by Dan Michel, Chaucer, Lydgate, Sir Thomas Malory, Alexander Barclay, Lady Anne Bacon, Hooker, Milton, Sir William Temple, Shaftesbury, and others; and intreatable or untreatable, ‘implacable,’ &c., used by Chaucer, Alexander Barclay, Sanford, Richard Bernard, and others ; involve modifications of the original significations of mensurabilis and tractabilis, on which, as on the history of probabilis, sociabilis, &e., I need not now dilate. Reginald Scot, Phillip Stubbes, Dr. Beard, Dr. Donne, Sir N. Brent, Feltham, and Fuller latinized so far as to employ probable for ‘ tolerable,’ or else ‘ plausible’; and Alexander Barclay, before them, used it for ‘commendable.’ Sir N, Brent, in The History of the Council of Trent, &c. (1616), p. 317 (ed. 1676), has probability, ‘ laudableness.’ Forcible would have to be named here; if we had not departed from the more regular spelling of our forefathers,—kept up by Bishop Warburton,—forceable. This we took from Old Frengh. Mr. De Quincey spells unproduceable, and, like certain other political economists, means, by it, ‘unproductive.’ See his Works (ed. 1863), Vol. 2, p. 205. 74 cordable, ‘agreeable.’ Gower.’ Advantageable,” ‘advantageous.’ Thomas Nash, Shakespeare, Sir John Haywarde, Sir John Eliot, &. &e. Anchor- able, ‘fit for anchorage.’ Sir Thomas Herbert. Applauseable,* ‘ praiseworthy.’ Chanceable, ‘ for- tuitous.’ Latimer, William Baldwin, Sir Philip Sidney. Chargeable, ‘ burthensome,’ ‘ costly.” Sir John Fastolf, Earl Rivers, Bp. William Barlow, Sir Th. Audeley, J. Olde, Sir John Smythe, Sir John Harington, Sir Edward Hoby, Buckeridge, Hales, Speed, Sir Aston Cockain, Heylin, Dr. Johnson, Gibbon, Burke, Isaac Jackman, &. &. Com- merceable, ‘ suitable for traffic.’ Henry Earl of Mon- mouth. Compassionable,* ‘ deserving of compas- sion.’ Henry Earl of Monmouth, Isaac Barrow, 1 Gower has concordable, also. ° Vantageable, Anon., The Triumphs of King James the First (1610), p. 83. Bacon has disadvantageable, ‘disadvantageous ;’ Chettle, unadvantageable. 3 The History of the Cardinals, &c. (1670), p. 326. * In William Lithgow and James Hayward, compassionable means ‘ compassionate,’ also. Conversely, compassionate has often been used for ‘ compassionable.’ See the Dictionaries, and my Modern English, p. 221. Compassionative has been ventured for ‘compassionate.’ “ Nor would hee have permitted his compassiona- tive nature toimagine,’ &c. Sir Kenelme Digby, Observations upon ‘ Religio Medici’ (ed. 1644), p. 12. Hieron—Works (ut supra), Vol. 1, p. 889,—has compassionatedness, perhaps an error for compas- sionateness, which is there meant. Like compassionate, ‘ compassionable,’ is Edward Terry's inconst- derate, ‘inconsiderable.’ ‘ When they had sold any one of their bullocks to us for a little ¢nconsiderate peece of brasse,” &e. A Voyage to East-India (1655), pp. 14, 15. TO &e. Contentable, ‘satisfying.’ Dr. Donne. Cur- able, ‘curative.’' Whetstones. Defensadble, ‘defen- sive,” ‘affording defence.’ Demurradle, ‘to which a demurrer may be put in.’ Henry Hallam.° 1 Medicabilis, similarly, came, in late Latin, to have two signi- fications. : 2 « Every man that ye have defensable, they have tweyne: ther- fore, but ye be wisly ruled, ye shull be distroied, and lese youre reame.”? Merlin (1450-14602), p. 54 (ed. 1865, &c.). ‘The meene peple of the town were come oute with all wepen that thei myght have deffensable.” Ibid.,p. 119. See also pp. 177, 179, 186, 188, 234, 252, 599, 604. “* Defensably arrayde.” Richard Duke of Gloucester (1483), in The Paston Letters, Vol. 3, p. 306 (ed. 1872-1875). ‘In ther defen- sable aray.” The Rebels’ Proclamation (1489), 2bid., Vol. 3, p. 362. But the word in question was written defensible, also. ‘‘Ther was a proclamacion made,.... that no man shuld nether bere wepon, ner were harnes defensible,” &c. Henry Wyn- desore (1455), in The Paston Letters, Vol. 1, p. 846 (ut supra). ‘* Personys defensebylly arayid.” Margaret Paston (1459), ibid., Vol. 1, p. 438.° “Defensibly araied.” John Earl of Oxford (1471), ibid., Vol. 2, p. 422. Diffensibely arayed.” Id. (1489), ibid., Vol. 3, p. 353. “ Defensible arraye.” Royal Proclamation (1485), ibéd., Vol. 3, p. 820. John Duke of Suffolk (1485) has “ others defensible, able to labour,” &c. bdid., Vol. 3, p. 324. ** Defensibil armoure.” Stanyhurst (1582), Translation, &c. (ué supra), p. 47. That, in the following extract, defenceable means ‘ defendable,’ is possible. «¢ But almighty God, who delighteth not in shedding of Christian blood, hath exercised her [Queen Elizabeth’s] heart in harmlesse thoughts, defenceable delights, and aiding powers, graciouslie con- tented with honors and kingdoms deserved, not at all disposed to any small things usurped.” Questions of Profitable and Pleasant Concernings, &c. (1594), fol. 16 r. An old verb defense, for defence, occurs in the Bible and else- where. Spenser uses fencible, active; and fencidles is in use at present. 3 Constitutional History, &c. (ed. 1842), Vol. 1, p. 49, second 76 Discomfortable, ‘ discomforting,’ &.? Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, William Watson, Bacon, Dekker and Webster. Discord- able, ‘ discordant,’ Gower, Chaucer. Formadle, ‘formal,’ &. John Paston,? Dekker.’ Fortunable, ‘fortunate.’ Alexander Barclay,‘ Bishop Bale. Hazardable,? ‘hazardous.’ Feltham, Sir Thomas Browne. Homageable, ‘bound to pay homage.’ James Howell.’ Markadle,’ ‘ notable.’ Bp. Pecock, Robert Parsons, Dr. Thomas Beard, Verstegan, Sir John Harineton, Dekker and Webster, &. &e. foot-note. Reference is there made to A Treatise of the Court of Star-chamber, by William Hudson, of Gray’s Inn, who died before Dec. 19, 1635. This treatise occupies pp. 1-240 of the Collectanca Juridica, Vol. 2. On consulting it, ] do not find that Hallam took his demurrable from that source. 1 Shakespeare’s discomfortable, for ‘refusing comfort,’ is certainly from a substantive; and so is discomfortable, as affectedly used, by some recent writers,—among whom I am sorry to find Mr. Swinburne,—for ‘uncomfortable.’ Edward Terry has incomfort- able, ‘discomforting,’ in 4 Voyage to East-India (1655), p. 242. Sir Thomas Malory has the verbs active miscomfort and discomfort. 2 A formable bylle” (1479). See The Paston Letters (ut supra), Vol. 3, p. 256. 3 Dramatic Works (ed. 1873), Vol. 1, p. 182. In Vol. 3, p. 348, Dekker and Webster make a woman blunderingly use deformable in the same sense as Dekker’s formadle, that of ‘ inclinable.’ + He has unfortunable, also, Henry Carey, in The Contrivances (1715), makes a vulgar person use, besides unfortunadle, for ‘ unfor- tunate,’ occastonable, and numberation. 5 [have heard this word from the mouths of English rusties. ® Familiar Letters (1622 and 1633), p. 78, 234 (ed. 1713). Miss Burney makes the low-bred Mr. Simkins use surprisable for surprising.’ Cecilia, Book 10, Ch. 6. ? Our remarkable is imitated from the French rhematic re- marquable, 77 Medicinable,* -* medicinal.’ Wicliffe, Meredith Hanmer, Reginald Scot, Hooker, Whetstones, Shakespeare, Richard Dolman, Feltham, Bishop Sanderson, Wotton, Coleridge, &. &e. Pain- able, § painful.’ Evelyn. Passadle,’ ‘ prone to pass.’ Feltham. Pozsonadle,’ ‘poisonous.’ Dr. William Cuningham, Lithgow. eproachadle, ‘ reproach- ful’* Sir Thomas Elyot, Nicholas Udall. Troublable, ‘troublesome.’ Chaucer. Tunadle,° 1 Unmedcinable, qualifying ‘‘ balme,” occurs in Chapman, 7'he Gentleman-Usher, Act 4, 2 Add impassable, ‘unable to pass.’ Martin Madan, Thelyph- thora, Vol. 2 (1780), p. 219. 3'The Rev. Richard Bernard, Hieron, and many other older writers, use, instead of this, poisonful. 4 Sir Thomas Elyot has this word, for ‘importing reproach.’ Reproachful now has this sense alone ; but generally, of old, as used, for instance, by Raphe Robynson, Thomas Norton, M. Hanmer, Sir Henry Savile, Coghan, Andrewes, Southwell, Sir John Harington, William Watson, Hales, Prynne, Milton, Henry More, Shaftesbury, Myles Davies, and many others, it meant ‘ worthy of reproach.’ Even Dr. Johnson gives it this meaning. See his Debates in Par- liament (ed. 1787), Vol. 1, pp. 187, 809; Vol. 2, p. 412. Like doleful, doubtful, and fearful still, auful, dreadful, fright- ful, hateful, rightful, shameful, woful, &c., formerly had double senses, and were both subjective and objective. In Bishop Bale and James Sanford, destrous means ‘desirable’: compare Tacitus’s credulus for credibilis. Needful, even in The French Academie (ed. 1589), p. 305, is for ‘needy.’ William Rowley (1609) writes of ‘a worshipful salute.” John Stow, Thomas Fuller, Washington (Milton’s translator), and many others, put troublesome for ‘trou- bled” Troublous, also, and perilous, have had two senses. Alike unsuggestive, apart from the context, of what is intended by it, is respectuous,—in French, respectueux,—once somewhat in vogue for ‘respectful,’ as in Ariana (1636), pp. 60, 208, 266. 5 Untunable is used by James Sanford, Dr. William Fulke, Phi- lemon Holland, Bacon, Mabbe, Feltham, &c. &c. Z'unableness. William Wotton, &c. &e. 78 ‘harmonious.’ Bishop Bale, Chettle, Shakespeare, Dr. Thomas Wright, Sir Thomas Browne, Thomas Fuller, Milton, Henry More, Richard Franck, Swift, Addison, Sir Richard Steele, &. dc. Unmeritable, ‘ unmeritorious.’ Lord Thurlow. Unquarrelable,, ‘unimpugnable.’ Sir Thomas Browne. Unsightable, ‘invisible.’ Wicliffe. Un- triumphable, ‘not an object of triumph.’ Samuel Butler. Unvoyageable, ‘innavigable,’ Milton,’ Mr. De Quincey. Of French adjectives in -ad/e special considera- tion may here be pretermitted. Nor does my present purpose require that I should dwell on the classical exemplars either of those words or of our own which correspond to them. The Romans had, as passive rhematic adjectives, among hun- dreds, domabdilis, laudabilis, placabilis ; as active rhematic, aduladilis, animabilis, excitabilis, invita- bilis, testabilis ; as neuter rhematic, eguabilis, con- cordabilis, congregabilis, contemplabilis, discordabilis, durabilis, inclinabilis, latrabilis, prestabilis, reme- abilis, stabilis, variabilis ; and, as by bare possibility substantival, favoradilis, voluptabilis.? As every + Quarrel, as a verb active, is used by Ben Jonson, Owen Feltham, Peter Heylin, William Prynne, Joseph Glanvill, Jeremy Collier, &e. &e. 2 Milton has voyage as an active verb. 3 Favorabilis—after which, at a late period, came infavorabilis, —regularly presupposes favorare, a verb not found. ‘That the Ro- mans did not prefer to construct favibilis, from favere, there was, 79 scholar is well aware, these classes of words, the doubtless, some good reason. By the way, those who write favor- able in English follow the French, whence we took it. Voluptabilis, ‘pleasing,’ is used by Plautus; and not till long after his time do we knowany verb cognate thereto; besides which, Apuleius’s voluptari means ‘enjoy pleasure.’ Hospitabilis, if we found it in Latin, would bear a similar relation to hospitari. The letadilis of Ammianus Marcellinus may be justified by Ovid’s letare. It is open to very grave question whether we are to take favura- bilts and voluptabilis from favor and voluptas. Rationabilis, used by Seneca and Apuleius, and veniabilis, used by Prudentius and Sidonius, must be referred, it seems, to the sub- stantives ratio and venia. Whether disctplinabilis, of like sort of origin, really occurs in a work which has been attributed to Corni- ficius, appears to be very doubtful. The unclassical amicabilis is little likely to have been based on amicare . equally with amicalis, it looks like a needless elongation of amicus. In short, unrhematic adjectives in -bilis are all but, if not quite, unknown in Latin of the best times and just after them. Furthermore, 3, as a desinen- tial element, has a dynamic function, and, therefore, save on a violation of ancient analogy, has no place in unrhematic derivatives. Vide supra, p. 43, note 7. Latin rhematic adjectives in -2lis, with -ib-,—the connecting vowel z, and the dynamic 5,—prefixed, are based, to some extent, on supines, actual or thematized.” Instances are seen in comprehen- sibilis, flexibilis, plausibilis ; after which we find accessibilis, amis- sibilis, apprehensibilis, compassibilis, divisibilis, imprensibilis, passt- bilis, persuasibilis, possibilis, remissibilis, risibilis, sensibilis, visibilis, &c. &c. These we have imitated very largely. An imaginative critic has charged me with setting forth ‘‘a Latin termination -abilzs.”” I havenever done so; and, ever since I wasa very small boy, I have been incapable of doing so. After calling our -ablea *‘ termination,” I was particularly careful to avoid desig- nating -adilis similarly. Writing in a newspaper, and having to study brevity, I simply named together English adjectives and Latin in -able and -abilis, respectively. My reason was, that I thought the letter I was writing would hardly see the light, if I aimed to be strictly scientific, and went into details about -dés, with the rhematic stem, the connecting vowel, the dynamic consonant, and all that, contributory to the formation of a complete word like amabilis or edibilis, for instance. 80 last only excepted, are, each, more or less largely represented in acceptable Latin.’ Having sufficiently evinced that our adjectives in -able, and likewise their foreign ancestors and congeners, are constructed on a variety of models, and have, with reference to their bases, very mul- tifarious senses, I proceed to take account of those formations, as yet left unconsidered, which exactly match with reliable. Acquaintable.? This word, used by Chaucer,’ has the sense of ‘ easy to be acquainted with,’ Complainable. Feltham, contrasting profane- 1 Many adjectives in -bilis had a twofold character. Compre- hensibilis, consolabilis, dubitabilis, excruciabilis, exorabilis, exsecra- bilis, medicabilis, penetrabilis, placabilis, visibilis were both passive and active; and vegetabilis was alike active and neuter. Some of these words, and some of those mentioned in the text, and in the last note, are not Latin of the best quality. 2 Archdeacon Todd professes to find the original of this word in the ‘Old Fr. accotntable.” Thé form acointable, from acointer, ‘inform,’ may have been used; but I find no authority for it in any lexicographer that deals with medieval French. For acquaint, Caxton writes acoynt. Acquaint, asa verb neuter, occurs in Merlin (1450-1460 2), p. 425 (ed. 1865, &e.). Unacquainted, ‘ unusual,’ formerly not uncommon, will be spoken of in a coming page, 3 Poetical Works (Bell’s ed.), Vol. 7, p, 83: ‘‘Wherfore be wise and aqueyntable, Goodly of word, and resonable Bothe to lesse and eke to more.” Archdeacon Todd looked upon acquaintable as ‘‘ worthy of re- vival.” In consistency, lhe would not have been shocked at reliable, a word which, however, he takes no notice of. Again, those writers who use attain to, and never attain by itself, should not hesitate at reliable ; attainable, which no one refuses, being, to them, a word to be similarly accounted for. 81 ness and superstition, writes:’ ‘Tho both be blameable, yet superstition is the less complain- able.” Again: ‘The play that’s most com- plainable is the inordinate gaming for money, which he that first invented was, certainly, either very idle or else extremely covetous,’’? 1 Resolves, &c. (ed. 1696), p. 208. 2 Jbid., p. 250. : Complain, as a verb active, though it occurs, was never, I take it, after Queen Elizabeth’s. time, established prose English. The quotations for it which the lexicographers give might be supple- mented by others from Alexander Barclay, Udall, Whetstones, Feltham, &c, Many verbs neuter, once more or less ventured as actives, have taken little or else no hold as such. Among them are abstain, advert, agree, amount, aspire, belong, beware, blunder, care, carp, comment, condole, converse, dally, derogate, discourse, expostulate, gaze, happen, hearken, laugh, listen, look, machinate, participate, prevail, prevaricate, quail, quarrel, remonstrate, retire, savour, scoff, sorrow, speculate, tarry, thirst, tyrannize, vie. Besides complainable, Feltham has such rare adjectives in -able as compensable, delineable, destroyable, gustable, perceivable, perspicable, temptable, unascendable, unbribable, uncompellable, unconfutable, un- delayable, unrecallable, untouchable, with the ill-spelled reprehendable, unapprehendable, and unresistable. The age in which Feltham wrote was one when the fashion of experimenting on English prevailed all but universally. He him- self experimented on it most freely ; but his eccentricities of lan- guage seem to have been no bar to his popularity. That this was the case is evident from the fact, that his Resolves passed through no fewer than eleven editions within seventy years after its first ap- pearance. Among substantives and adjectives which he converts into verbs are abortive, adversary, agony, alchemy, anthem, antidote, anvil, arrow, art, atom, author, bald, billow, bladder, blithe, bramble, biisk, candidate, churiot, cinder, conduit, context, coy, degree, digit, dis- pleasant, emblem, epicure, epigram, fertile, fond, froward, fury, giddy, harsh, hell, hill, hoar, horrid, imposthume, instinct, island, kersey, F 82 Conversable. For some centuries, we have had, chiefly as a poetic word, the substantive con- verse, ‘familiarity,’ ‘free discourse.’ It is un- likely, however, that it served as the base, of conversable, This adjective, if not from the rhe- matic phrase converse with, was suggested by the French conversable, to be defined with reference to converser avec. The French conversadle, now ex- tinct, has been explained by “‘ avec qui on peut converser,’’’ ‘with whom one can converse,’ the king, knee, lax, lever, limbeck, maxim, merry, mild, mist, penance, period, pleasant, preamble, precept, prodigal, proverb, rapine, remote, resurrection, retrograde, rivule, rugged, slime, snail, statue, strait, strumpet, sullen, synalepha, tabid, temple, thyme, total, tumult, unpleasant, unworthy, vain, valiant, vassal, vice, vigour, violence, virulent, vizard, vulture, whey, wild, world. . He is very fond of strange verbs in -ate, dis-, en-, in-, and un-: bestiate, bituminate, conflate, congeriate, denudate, dictitute, dissen- tiate, exacuate, exanimate, exsiccate, incruciate, indulciate, indulgiate, tnsaniate, inseminate, insidiate, invigilate, lasciviate, obnubilate, ' subhumerate, superbiate, superinsatiate, tristitiate, voluptuate ; dis- apparel, disarray, discloak, disdeify, disfair, disinterest, disman, dismanacle, disproportion, disvalue, diswont, disworth ; embarren, encolden, encommon, endarken, enguard ; imbetter, imboast, impen, impublic, incloud, incurtain, infavour, inflex, ingiddy, inhold, in- league, inlet, inletter, insafe, insearch, insoul, instir, insweeten, in- valley, inwave ; unict, unalchemy, uncredit, uncurtain, unintangle, unsin, untongue. “To these may be added abtrude, circummure, concement, co-une, divel, foot-ball, good-fellow, love-conquer, midnight, missense, outlet, outrise, partialize, post-haste, postposit, recide, re- plenty, seposit, transwing. 1 Pierre Richelet. M. Bescherelle has: “Mot hasardé par Voiture [1598-1648], pour ‘agréable dans la conversation.’” M. Littré’s definition is: “Avec qui on peut converser facilement, agréablement.” But, in French, converser still has the large sense which the verb converse and its conjugates once had in English. 83 identical signification at present alone borne by our conversable,} Dependable. Dr. Worcester, followed by several 1 “An empty man of a great family is a creature that is scarce conversable.” Addison, The Guardian, No. 187. And see Addison in The Tatler, No. 153. “They are not only suffered, but sought after, by all the best company, and, indeed, are the most conversable and reasonable people in the place.” Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1751), The Letters and Works, &c. (ed. 1837), Vol. 2, p. 442. For conversable, as used by Southey, see the foot of p. 34, supra. Exemplifications of conversable used in divers senses here follow. Mrs. Aphra Behn has it as the equivalent of ‘ talkative.’ “That conversable thing I hate, Already, with a just disdain, That prides himself upon his prate, And is of words, that nonsense, vain.” Novels (ed. 1871), Vol. 2, p. 148. ‘*But of other authors ’t is expected they shou’d be better bred. They are oblig’d to preserve a more conversible habit, which is no small misfortune to ’em.”’ Lord Shaftesbury (1710), Characteristicks, &e., Vol. 1, p. 162 (ed. 1732). “ Methinks, said he, Philocles! (changing to a familiar voice), we had better leave these unsociable places, whither our fancy has transported us, and return to ourselves here again, in our more conversable woods and temperate climates.” Jd. (1709), 2bid., Vol. 2, p. 391. “ He was a speaker of a very conversable style.” Edward Jones, Cicero’s Brutus, &c. (1776), pp. 162, 163. Steele, in The Tatler, No. 264, has the expression “his con- versable life,” meaning, by conversable, ‘employable in conversa- tion.’ Unconversable is used by Thomas Nash (before 1594), Mrs, Apnra Behn, Steele, &c. &e.; inconversable, by Henry More, Jeremy Collier, and De Foe. Some living writers, Mr. Ruskin being one of them, persist in writing conversible, after a bad old fashion. Canvassing our termination -able, Archdeacon Hare writes: ‘‘A true feeling of analogy would have withheld us from employing it in the formation of any but verbal adjectives, and those, too, such 84 other lexicographers, gives this word,’ which Pope uses to qualify ‘‘ friendships.” Dr. Webster says it is “not in use,” instead of which his Editors call it “‘ obsolete.” It is not so in the colloquial that the meaning of the adjective should correspond with that of the simple verb. Conversable, for example, if it means ‘able to converse,’ is formed analogously [sic]; if ‘ fit to be conversed with,’ unanalogically.” Plainly, he was not aware that we took the word from the French. Since we chose to do so, we have no right to complain of it from any point of view. After speaking of redéability, which he calls “scarcely admis- sible,” the Archdeacon continues: ‘Still more faulty are words in which the verbal character is entirely lost, and in which the termination -adle is appended to substantives. Customable has rightly given way to customary ; peaceable, as Tooke observes, is a needless substitute for peaceful ; personable, companionable, sizeable, conscionable, unconscionable are words which, though good authority may be produced for them, are not without reason called monsters by Horne Tooke; and all who care about purity of speech would do well scrupulously to avoid them.” Fragments, &c., Il., pp. 78, 77. The narrowness and hastiness of the counsel here given greatly surprise one, considering the profound scholarship of its lamented giver. Consistently, he should have included, in his category of pro- seription, charitable, equitable, exceptionable, fashionable, marriage- able, objectionable, saleable, seasonable, treasonable, veritable, &e. &e., already adverted to, from among words which we still use con- stantly. Surprising, too, is the obliviousness, here seemingly betrayed, regarding the Latin adjectives rationabilis, veniabilis, &¢c., which, in our present acquaintance with Latin etymology, are equally “monsters” with our formatives not deducible from verbs. A word devised in disregard of old analogy we are for- bidden, by justice, to consider as monstrous, if good writers and speakers consent to employ it. In philology, no analogy could ever have existed but for a basis of what was once innovation ; and the growth and the change of language must needs go on engendering new analogies in undefinable succession. 1 Allied to dependable is a very careless use of depend, sometimes met with. “So [he] reckoned up two or three saints’ names that, he de- 85 currency of England. Undependadle,' too, is sometimes met with, Dispensable.” As regards multiplicity of mean- ings, few of our prepositions. rival with; and its meaning of-‘ with respect to,’ which it generally has, or has had, when annexed to the verb dis- pense, is noticeable. Again, to understand the import of dispense, in several of its uses, including one which we still retain, it is necessary to advert to dispensation, ‘exemption from some law,” to quote: Dr, Johnson’s third definition of the word. A thing which ‘may be dispensed with,’* or is dis- pended, were enough to fright the Devil.” Defoe, The Secrets of the Invisible World Disclosed (1727), p. 86 (ed. 1840). “You may depend, . . . the Devil comes of no such errand.” Id., ibid., pp. 327, 328. “You may depend, dear madam, nothing shall be wanting,” &e. Lady Mary W. Montagu (1762), The Letters and Works, &e. (ed. 1837), Vol. 8, p. 293. ‘*Your Lordship may, at the same time, depend that I shall avoid, with the greatest precaution, taking any steps,’ &c. The First Earl of Malmesbury (1773), Diaries and Correspondence, Vol. 1, p. 108. And just as anomalous is a use of dependence, sometimes met with. “The waters, I shall continue drinking, without much depend- ance of getting better.” Miss Elizabeth Carter (1763), Memoirs &e. (ed. 1816), Vol. 1, p. 295. 1 Tt ig used in The Saturday Review, Vol. 9 (1860), p. 303. 2 This word, when signifying ‘to be dispensed with,’ is strictly parallel to reliable ; the dispense with which it is connected being nothing without supplial of a preposition following, And the same sort of supplial must be made to the verbs implied by all the adjec- tives here bracketed with dispensable. 3 On dispense with, before persons, Dr. Johnson, who cites only Addison for it, observes: ‘This construction seems ungram- 86 pensable, is, then, in older English, one which matical’? Yet would not he have said ‘I can dispense with you,’ meaning ‘I can do without you’? Why the expression dispense with, before persons, is ‘‘ ungrammatical,” but is not so before things, Dr. Johnson leaves to us to discover. In general, one will understand him best by bearing in mind, that his comments on words are, as often as not, mere caprices. To his quotation from Addison I add sixteen, from a large number available. ‘‘Thomas was juged to drawying, hanging, an hedyng. But the Kyng, of special grace, dispensid with him of the too first peynes.” Capgrave, The Chronicle of England (14644), p. 190. “‘And, the same time, the Pope dispensid with the said Lord Thomas, Duke of Clarence, forto wedde the countesse of Somerset, his unclez wiff.” Anon., An English Chronicle (before 1471), p. 37 (Camden Society, 1856). “T have answer ageyn fro Roome, that there is the welle of grace and salve sufficiaunt for suche a soore, and that I may be dyspencyd with : neverthelesse, my proctore there axith a m! docatys, as he demythe.” Sir John Paston (1473), in The Paston Letters, Vol. 3, p. 101 (ed. 1872-1875). “ Wherfor we moost humbly desyer and pray your Grace to have moo priests to performe your Graces ordynaunce in your sayd Col- lege, or els to dyspense wt us for oon of your masses,” &e. Dean William Capon (1529 %), in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c. First Series (ed. 1825), Vol. 1, pp. 188, 189. ‘He hath dispensed with a man to marry his own brother’s wife, as youknow. He hath dispensed with the brother to marry his own natural sister,” &c. Bishop Jewel (1561), Works (ed. 1848), Vol. 8, p. 168. “You must think that Doctor Dale will dispence, in that matter, as he did, at his Lordships appointment, with his Italian physitian, Doctor Julio, to have two wives at once.” Parsons, Leycesters Commonwealth (1584), p. 21 (ed. 1641). “The Popes Holinesse cannot dispense with any one to fulfill it, no more then to dispense with any one to kill himselfe.” William Watson, A Decacordon, &c. (ed. 1602), pp. 12, 18. See also p. 28 (bis) and p. 222. “Yet am I farre from daring to dispute With that great soveraigntie, whose absolute Prerogative hath thus dispens’d with thee, ’Gainst natures lawes,” dc, Dr, Donne, Poems, &c. (ed. 1633), p. 148. 87 ‘is a matter for dispensation,’ and, therefore, “ He said the ancient Fathers had many wives by dispensation ; and the others, who were not dispensed with by God, did live in perpetual sin.” Sir Nathanael Brent’s Translation of The History of the Council of Trent, &c. (1616), p. 627 (ed. 1676). See also pp. 634, 635, 640, &e. &e. “A man may omit kneeling in prayer, but not humilitie. Though hee may bee dispensed with in not speaking with his tongue, yet his heart must crie: though hee want a fit voyce to sing with the congregation, yet his spirit must joyne.” Samuel Hieron, Works (ed. 1624, &e.), Vol. 2, p. 365. See also Vol. 1, p. 488; Vol. 2, pp. 162, 264, 363. «And we may observe, our Saviour was so far from allowing not only wrong, but force even, in souldiers and merchants, (who yet, if any, are dispensed with), that he binds up their profession in such limits as ’t is hardly possible to a souldier and a Christian.” Feltham, Resolves, &c. (ed. 1696), p. 224. “ The laws of necessity do dispence with us for those of formality.” Sir Richard Baker, Balzac’s Letters (1638), Vol. 1, p. 58 (ed. 1654). See also Vol. 3, p. 101. “Wherefore he dispensed with them for going, as knowing how to use their help nearer, and to greater profit.” Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre (ed. 1647), p. 20. See also pp. 119, 152, 165, 177, 225. “Ig it not, then, strange, that, when others dispense with them, they should not dispense with themselves, but voluntarily degrade themselves, and with sin forfeit so noble a privilege?’”’ Isaac Barrow, Works (ed. 1683), Vol. 1, p. 220. “T believe I cannot be dispensed with from appearing at the con- versations which, I hear, he intends to hold,” &. Lady Mary W. Montagu (1739), The Letters and Works, &c. (ed. 1837), Vol. 2, p. 258. “The world, my friend, has substituted good manners in the place of good nature. Whoever conforms to the former is dis- pensed with from any observance of the latter.” Henry Brooke, The Fool of Quality (1760), Vol. 1, p. 218 (ed. 1792). And see Vol. 5, pp. 111, 208. See also Memorials of King Henry the Seventh (1858), p. 295 1506); Sir Thomas Urquhart, Translation of Rabelais (ed. 1694), Vol. 2, p. 190; Dr. Peter Heylin, Cyprianus Anglicus, p. 201; Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1. 1377. 88 ‘may be excused.’* Such a thing we may readily ‘permit the want of,’ and then ‘ waive,’ ‘ forgo,’ “lay aside,’? ‘do without.’ Thus, by easy grada- 1 According to circumstances, dispense with was used in very different senses. “T say, seeing the Pope doth as he doth; that is, as he hath dispensed with the oath and duty of subjects to their Prince, against the fifth commandement; with the murder, both violent, with daggs, and secret, with poyson, of the sacred persons of Princes, against the sixth;” &c. &c. Bishop Andrewes (1588), XCVJ. Sermons (ed. 1661), p. 690. “The Frenchmen, perceiving it was the more common opinion, that the marriage of priests might be dispensed with, consulted together whether it were fit to demand a dispensation for the Car- dinal of Borbon, as Lorain and the ambassadors had commis- sion.” Sir Nathanael Brent (ut supra), p. 635. “Therefore many Catholicks did then, and do now, think better to dispense with the law of continency than, by retaining it, to open a gate to unclean single life, leaving marriage free for all; and the rather because Cardinal Panormitan doth hold that it would be good for the salvation of souls to grant matrimony,” &e. Jd., ibid., p. 768. 2 “ Hope also shee did, that her father would dispence with his haste to be acquainted with those princes,” &. James Hayward, The Banish’d Virgin (1635), p. 192. ‘As for that religious scruple which Godfrey made, to wear a crown of gold, where Christ wore one of thorns, Baldwine easily dispensed therewith.” Thomas Fuller, The Historie, &c. (ué supra), p. 52. «« When art and counterfeit discourse is design’d for the benefit of a person, when you can’t serve him any other way, when you are morally assur’d he will dispence with his right to clear information, and thank you for the expedient ; in this case, I say, I’m strongly of opinion, that swerving from truth is not unjustifiable.” Jeremy Collier, Essays upon Several Moral Subjects, Part IV. (ed. 1725), p. 140. See also Modern English, p. 226, note 8. One of Dr. Johnson’s first definitions of dispense with is ‘‘ allow,” a meaning it once had very commonly. He would have us so take 89 tions, we obtained dispensable in its modern ac- the phrase in his quotation from Dr. Watts: “Rules of words may be dispensed with.” But, surely, we are here to understand dispensed with in the sense of ‘forgone,’ ‘pretermitted.’ Sir Thomas Browne uses dispense with, on one occasion, ap- parently with great looseness, unless we bear distinctly in mind that it imports ‘ grant a dispensation as regards’ : ‘*At the sight of a crosse, or crucifix, I cam dispence with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour.” Religio Medici (ed. 1645), p. 5. Compare with this the extracts given in the preceding note. But very strange is the use of dispense with here following : *¢ Yet so resolv’d are they [fish] with contempt to cruelty, that they scorn to petition a reprieve for life, but rather submit them- selves to be tortur’d to death by the tormenting hand of the scari- fying cook, that dispenseth with art to elevate the appetite, if when only to make it pleasant to 4 generous acceptation.” Richard Franck, Northern Memoirs (ed. 1694), p. 268. For dispense with, in the sense of ‘dispose of,’ see Modern Eng- lish, p. 264. Here is another quotation for it. “ Several of my friends were, this morning, got together over a dish of tea, in very good health, though we had celebrated yester- day with more glasses than we could have dispensed with, had we not been beholden to Brooke and Hellier.” Steele, The Spectator, No. 362. In explanation, the wines were so good, that the compotators were able to drink largely of them with impunity. If dispense with, for ‘dispose of,’ ‘consume,’ were found a century or so before Queen Anne’s time, it would be obvious to connect it with the substantive dispence or dispense, once common for ‘expense,’ and used to signify ‘bounty,’ also. Dispend, for spend’ or ‘expend,’ long survived this dispense. Kxpend, perhaps before it meant ‘ spend,’ had the Latinistic signification of ‘ ponder,’ estimate.’ I may add that the substantive dispense or dispence,— whence, by apheresis, spence,—has been used for ‘larder,’ as by James Mabbe, The Rogue (ed. 1623), Part 2, pp. 848, 351. Milton’s dispense, ‘dispensation,’ is peculiar. Dr. Johnson has passed by entirely the simple dispense, verb active and neuter, as having to do with dispensation in its twofold aspect of ‘allowance’ and ‘exemption.’ 90 ceptation, ‘ what may be spared.” The word, in “‘Yet he did not accept the said conditions, and so, by the re- fusall of them, dispensed the Prince Elector Palatine not to be bound and obliged therewith,” &. Anon., A Briefe Information of the Affaires of the Palatinate (1624), p. 50. “Do you not take your selfe to be dispene’d thereby from your promises to the Prince, your brother?” Anon., Cassandra (ed. 1652), p. 117. See also pp. 102, 126, 133, 140. In these two passages, déspense means ‘ privilege,’ and ‘exempt’ or ‘free’; in the extracts which follow, ‘grant a dispensation.’ A dispensation, in the ecclesiastical sense of the term, has been well defined, in old phraseology, as ‘‘a disobligation from the law.” Sir Nathanael Brent’s Translation of The History of the Council of Trent, &c. (1616), p. 631 (ed. 1676). “Never was there Pope so coveytous yet that durst dyspence in this poynt,” &c. Sir Thomas More, A Dyaloge, &c., fol. 86 v. (ed. 1529). ‘‘For he may dispense above the lawe, and make right of un- right,” &. J. Olde, Antichrist (1556), fol. 118. “Even in them he maye dispense as it pleaseth him self, and make wrong to be right,” &. Jd., ibid., fol. 119. “« He said that authority to dispence in humane laws was absolute and unlimited in the Pope, because he was superiour to them all ; and, therefore, when he did dispence, though without any cause, the dispensation was, notwithstanding, to be held for good; that, in Divine Laws, he had power to dispence, but not without a cause.” Sir Nathanael Brent (ut supra), p. 631, See also pp. 604, 628, 671, &e. &e. “What warrant have we to dispense in the execution of the law, without the authoritie of him that made the law?” Samuel Hieron, Works (ed. 1624, &c.), Vol. 2, p. 74. “* But what doe I speake of these, but petty things in comparison of those her lowder impieties ;—breaking covenants of truce and peace; dissolving of lawfull, and dispensing for unlawfull, mar- riages....?” Bishop Sanderson (1621), Twelve Sermons, &e. (ed. 1687), p. 64. ‘‘Wer soule, that, better to admire It selfe, had seemed to retire In a rampart inaccessible, To render her will now dispence, In those forts no more invincible To my respectfull violence,” Anon,, Ariana (1636), pp. 183, 134. 91 this sense, is not now of frequent occurrence,’ “ Besides, the Pope would not dispense that Princes should hold pluralitie of temporall dominions in Italy,” &. Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre (ed. 1647), p, 212. See also the passage from Parsons at the foot of p. 86, supra ; Spelman, The History and Fate of Sacrilege, &c. (1632), p. 181 (ed. 1846) ; Edward Lord Herbert (died 1648), The Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth, p. 109 (ed. 1683). In the passages which ensue, dispense, a verb active, has a real, not a personal, object of regimen. , “Letters were presently written from this great lord to the archbishop, to stay the proceeding, to tolerate, to dispence, or to mitigate, the censure,” &c. Sir John Harington (1608), in Nuge Antique (ed. 1804), Vol. 2, pp. 18, 19. ‘In A Few Notes from Past Life (1862), p. 50, he uses it to qualify “house.” 95 Pleadable. ‘ Pleadable and unpleadable days” I find in a book’ which faithfully exemplifies the free English of the Elizabethan period. Whether the phrase was then common among lawyers, I am unable to say. ‘ Days on which one may plead, and those on which one may not plead,’ is to be understood by it. Preachable. ‘* Textis, and parabolis, and othere precheable processis,” writes Bishop Pecock.? To the best of my information, in his century, the fifteenth, ministers of religion preached on ‘texts,’ as they have done ever since.° Questionable. This word, as embodied in Shake- speare’s ‘‘ questionable shape,’’* various commenta- 1 James Sanford’s Translation of Agrippa (1569), fol. 85. ° The Repressor, &c., p. 89. A process is a ‘ passage in a book.’ 3 The following seems to be anomalous: ‘So it befelle that cer- taine holy men were come into the towne for to teche and preche the pepille,” &c, The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry (about 1372 2), p. 113 (ed. 1868). + Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4. It is worth noting, that questionable has been used for ‘amenable,’ &c. “The delinquent shall be sent to the place where he is ques- tionable for spiritual matters.” Robert Gentilis (1616), in Sir Nathanael Brent’s Translation of The History of the Council of Trent, &c. (ut supra), p. 833. ‘ “But all other inferiour Magistrates, Officers, and Princes whatsoever are resistible, questionable, censurable, and deposible, for their tyranny, wickednesse, and misgovernment, by the Parlia- ments censure,” &c. William Prynne, The Soveraigne Power, &c. (1643), Appendix, p. 20]. ‘* Not questionable nor accountable to them.” Jbid., p. 1. Similar is unquestionable. ‘Therefore their persons are sacred, 96 tors have explained by ‘‘ easy and willing to be conversed with,’ “‘ capable of being conversed with,”? &. &. If intended to bear this ‘sense, or one similar, questionable, being grounded on the rhematic phrase question with,® is here pertinently introduced, as supplying a parallel to reliable. irresistible, unquestionable, unpunishable, for any tyrannicall or exorbitant actions whatsoever.” Jd., ibid., p. 202. Both the words thus exemplified set out from the verb question, ‘hold amenable.’ “ But these both lawfully may be, and alwayes have beene, forcibly resisted, questioned, convented, deprived, censured, for their tyranny and misdemeanors,” &c. Id., zbid., p. 202. And so at p. 201. 1 Steevens. 2 Malone. 3 We may hardly doubt that it is so based, or that Shakespeare uses question with to signify ‘confer with. Witness his “think you question with the Jew,” and “long he questionéd with Lucrece.” This sense of question with, which is ill expressed by the “ debate by interrogatories’? of Dr. Johnson and his followers, is by no means peculiar to Shakespeare. “And these two knyghtes mette with Syre Tristram, and gues- tyoned with hym, and asked hym yf he wold juste with hem.” Sir Thomas Malory, La Morte Darthur (1469), Vol. 2, p. 7 (ed. Southey). “Then thus thei begin to question with hym, and to feele his minde, what he will saie,” &e. Sir Thomas Wilson, The Rule of Reason (1551), fol. 87 (ed. 1567). “ Trengeus reporteth, that, while Anicetus was Bishop of Rome, Polycarpus as yet lived, and came to Rome, and questioned with Anicetus concerning the day of Easter.” Meredith Hanmer, The Ancient Ecclesiasticall Histories, &c. (1576), p. 62 (ed. 1636). “ Questioned with Anicetus”’ is to render Husebius’s els duiAlay 7G AvKyty deity. “ Father Cotton, eyther moved with curiositie, or grounding him- selfe upon the familiaritie hee had with his spirits, tooke a journey thither, to question with this spirit on divers points which hee had a desire to know.” Anéi-coton (1611), p. 45. This work is a trans- lation, by G. H. ‘ Henry Brooke uses question with in the sense of ‘*expostulate with,” 97 Undeprivable. ‘‘He could not give me any “Nay, I was not far from murmuring, and questioning with my God, on his putting to such tortures the most guiltless of his crea- tures.” The Fool of Quality (1760), Vol. 3, p. 25 (ed. 1792). But there is old authority for this use of question with. ‘“Tullie, enveyghyng against Catiline, that Romaine rebell, be- ginneth hys oration chidingly; questionyng with Catiline of this sort : ‘ How long, Catiline, wilt thou abuse our sufferaunce? How longe will this rage and madnesse of thyne goe abont to deceive us ?’” Sir Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorike (1553), fol. 94 (ed. 1567). However, question with once had the sense of the simple question, also. See IJ. Chronicles, 31, 9; and St. Luke, 23, 9, where ‘ ques- tioned with him” translates érnpdra . avrév. “But this, madame, I wold ye sayd and advysed the kynge, whan he questyoned with you of me.” Sir Thomas Malory, La Mort Darthur (ut supra), Vol. 1, p. 227. The context has questyoned as synonymous with this questyoned with. In Christ’s letter to King Agbarus, we read: ‘‘ None of them saw the sight, save Agbarus alone, which questioned with Thaddeus, and said: ‘Art thou, of a truth, a disciple of Jesus, the son of God, which made me this promise?’’”? Meredith Hanmer (ut supra), p.16. The original of “‘questioned with Thaddeus” is rév Oaddatov Apero. Even now, question with, for question, is not too quaint for Mr. Ruskin. “Question with yourself respecting any feeling that has taken strong possession of your mind,” &. Lectures on Art (1875), p. 66. Make questions once meant‘ talk.’ “ But wayte ye make not many questions with her nor her men, but saye ye are diseased, and soo hye yow to bedde,” &c. Sir Thomas Malory (ut supra), Vol.1, p. 3. With, as formerly added to question, ‘interrogate,’ was added to other verbs, where we now dispense with it, “ Well hast thou answer’d with him, Radagon.” Robert Greene, Dramatic Works, &c. (ed. 1831), Vol, 1, p. 63. “Ts this such a matter for a king to complement with embas- sadours?” Samuel Hieron, Works (ed. 1624, &c.), Vol. 2, p. 130. ‘It ig a mock-service; as if what serves man would serve Him ; as if we could complement it with God, with face and phrases, as with men we do.” Bishop Andrewes (1617), XCVJ. Sermons (ed. 1661), p. 651. ‘‘When we had given over looking, I complemented with her, and told her that I did not grieve so much for the worth of the thing Ga 98 undeprivable possession of his work in England.” it selfe, as for her sake, whose it was.” Mabbe, The Rogue (ed. 1623), Part 1, p. 163. “Tf not, I have but a little strayned with duty, to complement with your Generall, where I expected to have right done me,” &e. Sir Samuel Luke (1645), in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &e. is Third Series (1846), Vol. 4, p. 263. ‘When a man rests in these alone easy performances, it is to complement with Almighty God, and not to worship him,” &e Edward Terry, 4 Voyage to East-India, p. 293 (ed. 1655). “Complement with me, and I will be very angry.” <‘* Comple- ment with me no more than I complement with you.” Sir Aston Cockain, Trappolin Creduto Principe (1658), Act 8, Scene 1. See also The Tragedy of Ovid (1662), by the same, Act 5, Scene 1. ‘* But, whilst Lindamor was thus complementing with what he fancy’d the picture of his once lov’d Hermione,” &. Hon. Robert Boyle, Occasional Reflections, &c., p. 201 (ed. 1669). ' The Emperour..... sent Lewis d’Avila to congratulate with the Pope for his assumption, and to desire him to set the Council on foot again.” Sir Nathanael Brent (1616), Translation, &c. (ut supra), p. 281. “Both the King and Maximilian the Emperor..... did, upon the place, congratulate with each other, and afterwards as- sisted at a solemn Te Deum for this easie victory.” Edward Lord Herbert (died 1648), The Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth, p. 38 (ed. 1688). “They gave an account thereof ..... to the King of France and King of England, from both of which, Embassadors were forth- with sent to congratulate with them.” Henry Earl of Monmouth, Historical Relations, &c. (1652), p. 100. “ And here I would have left the Bishops to enjoy their liberty, but that I am called back again, to congratulate with the Archbishop of York for holding the deanry of Westminster in commendam on so good an account.” Dr. Peter Heylin, Certamen Epistolare(1659),p. 381. “T have, this post, congratulated with the Duke of Marlborough for his victory.” Dr. Charles Davenant (1704), in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Second Series (1827), Vol. 4, p. 244. See also Anon., Ariana (1636), pp. 187, 827: Rev. John Ray (1700), in Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men, &c. (1848), p 205: Lord Shaftesbury, Characteristicks, &c. (ed. 1782), Vol. 1, 99 Thus ventures Mr. Charles Reade, who is by no p. 184; Vol. 3, pp. 204, 216, 253: Rev. T."A. Mann (1784), in Original Letters of, &c. (ut supra), p. 427. For congratulate to, meaning congratulate, Dr. Johnson quotes Sprat and Dryden. Still earlier, or in 1632, it was used by John Pory. See Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Second Series (1827), Vol. 3, p. 272. In the subjoined passage, which is translated from the Greek, con- gratu/ate, though followed by with, is, somewhat anomalously, neuter, “We, having, in a legal and canonical way, determined these controversies, do beseech your Reverence to congratulate with us ; your charity spiritually interceding, the fear of the Lord also compressing all humane affection, so as to make us to prefer the edification of the Churches to all private respect and favour toward each other,” &e. Dr. Isaac Barrow, A Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy, &¢., p. 323 (in Vol. 1 of Works, ed. 1683). Yet Barrow does not stand alone in the peculiarity just exemplified. “T should have been glad, however, to have thrown in my little information of those matters at the same time, if it had been no more than to have congratulated with you upon the joyful part of the news, aud, at the same time, condoled with you on the loss of a man who,” &c. Mr. Symmer (1759), in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Second Series (1827), Vol. 4, pp. 414, 415. Dr. Johnson almost certainly is wrong in taking as above the congratulate with which occurs in a passage quoted by him from Dean Swift. “‘He thinks, that, if the memories of those in the. Synod were consulted with, they would all confirm it.” John Hales (1618), Golden Remains (ed. 1673), Part 2, p. 37. ‘© Search but our own records; consult but with the author,” &e. Id., ibid., Part 3, p. 27. See also Part 1, p. 288. “Tf he went in to wash himself, as some write, he neither con- sulted with his health nor honour.” Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre (ed. 1647), p. 115. « Consulting with maps,” &¢, Id., ibid., p. 236. ‘ Such as consult with their credit,” &¢. Jd., The Holy State, &c. (ed. 1841), p. 442. “Tn like manner, he that supposeth himself injured, in a case determined by the written law, which he may, by himself or others, see and consider ; if he complain before he consults with the law, he does unjustly, and bewrayeth a disposition rather to vex other men, 100 means to be held up as an imitable writer of Eng- than to demand his own right.” Hobbes, Leviathan (ed. 1651), . 142. : “The people may very well, consulting with their sight, imagine the firmament to be betwixt the lights of heaven and the upper waters of that blew sea they look upon,” &c. Henry More, Con- jectura Cabbalistica (ed. 1662), p. 62. And see More’s Divine Dia- logues (1668), Vol. 2, p. 560. “He wasa man extremely well versed in old records, with which consulting frequently, in the course of his studies,” &c. Heylin, Cyprianus Anglicus (1668), p. 820. See also John Panke, The Fal of Babel (1608), p. 87: Henry Earl of Monmouth, Translation-of Senault (1649), pp. 256, 448 (ed. 1671): Hamon L’Estrange, An‘Answer to the Marques of Wor- cester’s Last Paper, &c. (1657), p. 21: and Anon., Triana (ed. 1654), p. 96. Instead of consult, Burton has consult to: The Anatomy of Mel- ancholy (ed. 1806), Vol. 2, p. 415. “So I here shake hands and cué with all these busy people, none of whom write to me.” Lord Byron (1810) in Works (ed. Moore, 1837), Vol. 1, p. 344. A similar instance, from Southey (1808), is quoted in Modern English, p. 264. “ But, whan he hadde ben with him a certaine space, and wold not flatter with the kynge, and upholde his tyrannie, the kinge became wery of him,” &. Sir Thomas Elyot, The Governour (1581), fol. 175 (ed. 1546). “Offa entertayned this noble impe civilie; but his wife, whose name was Quendreda, a wight more wilie than piteus or goddlie, nothing moved with loove, but of audacitee sufficient to attempt enie hainus enterprise, wente abowte to persuade with her husbande that he should murther Ethelbertus, and, consequentlie, season on the whole dominion of the Est Angles.” Anon., Translation of Polydore Vergil’s Historia Anglica (temp. Hen, VIII.), pp. 140, 141 (Camden Society, 1846). And see pp. 130, 230. See also Sir Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorike (1553), The Epistle Dedicatorie, and The Preface: Barnabe Riche, Farewell to Militarie Profession (1581), p. 179 (ed. 1846) : Philemon Holland, Translation of Ammianus Marcellinus (1609), p. 153. “ After which time, the Emperor treated no more with Francis as a prisoner, but a near ally; insomuch that, at the next visit, he 101 lish.* Mr. Reade intends, no doubt, by unde- privable, ‘which one cannot be deprived of.’* The word would have meant ‘which cannot be taken away,’ if we had retained ‘take away,’ ‘ effect deprivation of,’ ‘destroy,’ as a sense which offered him the right hand.” Edward Lord Herbert, The Life and Reign, &e. (ut supra), p. 182. See also p. 410. Dispense with, in its old senses, I have dwelt on at length in pp. 85-89, supra. And there are other verbs after which with has been used where we now omit it. Balance. Beard, The Theatre, &c. (ed. 1612), p. 539. Cross. Sir Philip Sidney ; Dr. Peter Heylin, Certamen Epis- tolare (1659), p. 39, and in other books. Endure. Margaret Pas- ton (14512), in The Paston Letters, Vol. 1, p. 201 (ed. 1872-1875). Parallel. Sir John Finche (1628), in Ephemeris Parliamentaria (ed. 1654), p. 50. Thwart. Heylin, Extraneus Vapulans (1656), p. 380; also Locke and Sir William Blackstone. Contrariwise, our forefathers were long satisfied with do away, make away, and put up, where we now add with tothem. We have, also, get through with and go through with. 1 The passage quoted above occurs in The Eighth Commandment (1860), p. 15. ? This differs from our old undeprivable and deprivable, from deprive, ‘depose,’ &e. ‘* Hither, therefore, our Opposites must grant all Bishops, Priests, Ministers, yea, all other Magistrates whatsoever, as irresistable, uncensurable, undeprivable, uncondemnable, for any crimes whatso- ever, ag they say Kings are, which they dare not do; or else make Kings as resistable, censurable, deprivable, and lyable to all kindes of punishments (by their whole Kingdoms consent in Parliament), as far forth as they, notwithstanding all the former Objections, which quite subverts their cause.” William Prynne, The Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes (1643), Part III., p. 121. James Harris, the philologist, translates Aristotle’s dvcagpalperos by indeprivable. Works (ed. 1801), Vol. 1. p. 161. Venturing the word in independent composition, at p. 71 of the same volume, he introduces it with the apologetic “if I may use the expression.” It occurs at pp. 104, 110, also. : 102 deprive had of old,! but which has rarely been given to it within the two last centuries. 1 “ This blissid name Maria there may he see, That, first of alle, our thraldom can deprive,” Lydgate, Minor Poems (ed. 1850), p. 63. “ He sodenly striketh with worde, or els knife, And, wening to correct, depriveth name or life.” Alexander Barclay, The Mirrour of Good Maners (ed. 1570), sig. E3r, ‘For the young people will corrupte the with their lightnesse, and olde folkes will deprive thy mind with their covetousnesse.” Lord Berners, The Golden Boke, &c. (1534), sig. X 5 r. (ed. 1546). “The silly bird, once caught in net, If she ascape alive, Will come no more so ny my snare, Her fredome to deprive.” Anon,, The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom (1579), p. 55 (ed. 1846), ‘The leafe of the cedar-tree, though it be faire to be seene, yet the sirrup depriveth sight.” Lyly, Zuphues (1579-80), p. 90 (ed. 1868). “Melancholie..... . hath deprived, or, rather, depraved, their judgements and all their senses.” Reginald Scot, The Disco- verie of Witchcraft, p. 52 (ed. 1584). “« By this same meanes it is thought that the cockatrice depriveth the life, &c. Jd, ibid., p. 486. ‘« Those [passions] which flie evill, as hatred, feare, sadnesse, pre- suppose the love of some good, the which that evill depriveth,” &c. Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall (ed. 1620), p. 146. ‘* And can this beauty, that my thoughtes adore, The use of voyce deprive me evermore, After she had depriv’d me that of reason?" Anon,, Ariana (1636), p. 165. Deprive has been used for ‘prevent,’ ‘ avert,’ ‘ keep off” “ Ale was his meate, his drinke, his cloth ; a Ale did his death deprive ; And, could hee still have drunke his ale, He had beene still alive.” Hakewill, An Apologie, &c. (ed, 1630), p. 166. In the third preceding extract, it looks as if deprive might be a mistake of the printer for deprave, But I suspect that deprave had no signification other than that of ‘blame,’ or one akin to 103 Weepable. Bishop Pecock bewails ‘‘ the rewful it, in Lord Berners’s age. In his work quoted above, we find: ‘We began to lose, whan our capiteignes began to deserve to be depraved and condempned.” Sig. Aalr, And we find, still ear- lier: “ Thus was Syr Arthur depraved and evyl sayd of.” Sir Thomas Malory, La Mort Darthur (1469), Vol. 2, p. 433 (ed. Southey). Many instances like the following might be adduced from litera- ture of an earlier date, and of a later. «Thus I meane to speake in generall, And none estate singulerly deprave, But the sentence of mine aucthour save,” Lydgate, The Tragedies gathered by Jhon Bochas, &c., sig. A 3 r. (John Wayland’s undated edition), «« Al the labour of phylosophers olde, Travayle of poetes, my maners to deprave, Hath ben, of yore, to say lyke as they woulde, Over my fredom the soverainte to have.” Id., ibid., fol. 184 y. See also fol. 152 r., &e. ‘* He was one of theym that depraved me, heretofore, with your Mastership, for no juste cause,” &c. John ap Rice (temp. Henry VIII), in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Third Series (1846), Vol. 2, p. 355. ‘‘Their intent and purpose was... .. to deprave him so unto the king, in his absence,” &. George Cavendish (about 1560), The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, &c., Vol. 1, p. 85 (ed. Nor. Singer). «* For men, mean men, the scum and dross of all, Will talk and babble of they know not what, Upbraid, deprave, and taunt they care not whom.” Thomas Nash, Summers Last Will and Testament (1592 2). * The greater is their folly to deprave That title which, perchance, themselves may have.” Nicholas Breton (2), Cornucopie (1612,, p. 12 (ed. 1819). Deprive, for ‘divest of office,’ ‘dispossess of dignity, right, or the like,’ has long been employed in ecclesiastical phraseology. And once it was used of secular functionaries, and of heirs, &c., generally. Writing of King Croesus, Lydgate says : «* He finally by Cyrus was outrayed, And deprived by knyghtly vyolence. oo The Tragedies, &c. (ut supra), fol, 58 r. See also fol. 129 v., 142 r., 155 v. 104 and wepeable destruccioun of the worthi citee and Not to multiply instances from Lydgate, once more: “ Unto their provost, Pylate, their Prince they dyd present, Who to his condemnacion dyd finally consent, For drede to be deprived and put out from his office,” The Bayte and Snare of Fortune, sig. B 3 v.' (John Wayland’s undated ed,). ‘«Thus your Grace shulde deserve of God to restore to hia right hym that were wrongfulli deprived.” Dr. William Knight (1513), in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Second Series (1827), Vol. 1, p. 207. “«Kynges and Emperoures ye have depryved,” Anon., A Proper Dyaloge, &c. (about 152972), in Mr. Arber’s edition of Rede me, &c., p. 129. " © Also, the. . . . kyng of Parthes not onelie was deprived, but also banished out of his realme,” &c. Lord Berners, The Golden Boke, &e. (ut supra), sig. H 7 v. “ And the aforesaid John Story... . did with theim conspire, compasse, and imagin the Queenes death, and her highnes to de- pose and depryve.” Anon., A Declaration of the Lyfe and Death of John Story, &c. (1571), sig. b 3 v. / Dr. Nicholas Sanders, writing in 1580, speaks of Queen Eliza- beth as “‘ deprived by the Vicar of Christ.” See Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Second Series (1827). Vol. 3, p. 95. “‘If the Pope do, by his Bull or Sentence, pronounce Her Ma- jesty to be deprived, and no lawful queen,” &. William Watson, Important Considerations, &c. (1601), p. 52 (ed. 1831). “*Ts there any other per me to go unto, to deprive or depose them [kings]?” Bishop Andrewes (1613), XCVJ. Sermons (ed. 1661), p. 611. “Tt is meete and necessary he should excommunicate and deprive all Kings who are either Heretickes or Apostates,” &c. William Prynne, The Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes (1648), Part I., p.4. See also Part 3, p. 23; Part 4, pp. 75, 81, 201, &e. ‘He took occasion (upon secret information given by Sir Jeffrey) to cause them to be indicted for devising . . . . to deprive the king.’ Edward Lord Herbert, The Life and Reign, &c. (ut supra), p. 501. See also p. 561. “Tt is no lesse folly to feare what is impossible to be avoided, then to be secure when there is a possibility to be deprived.” Fran- cis Quarles, Enchiridion, Century 4, Chapter 38 (ed. 1658). 105 universite of Prage, and of the hool rewme of “To deprive, or disinherit, one’s son.” William Robertson, Phraseologia Generalis (1681), p. 455. Deprive has sometimes been cut down to prive. * And thus Nembroth was prived and put doun ; And of Babel, the mighty famous toure, He was called no lenger possessour.” Lydgate, The Tragedies, &c. (ut supra), fol. 5 v. “To pryve the kyng.” William Baldwin (?), in 4 Myrrour for Magistrates (ed. 1563), sig. D 8 yr. After deprive or prive, many old and older writers put from, where we put of. «« But, for he was assented to deprive Worthy Anchus from his estate royal,” &c. . Lydgate, The Tragedies, &c. (ut supra), fol. 68 v. And see fol. 71 v., 82 v., 88 v., &e. “« From ryches they were deprived.” William Roy and Jerome Barlowe, Rede me and be nott wrothe (1528), p. 110 (Mr. Arber’s edition, 1871). “And so, taking councell of their frendes, Edwarde was pro- clamed king, and King Henry utterly deprived from all regall authoritie, because he had not kept covenant, nor obeyed the decree of Parliament, as though he had already woonne the fielde.” Anon., Translation of Polydore Vergil’s Historia Anglica (temp. Hen. VIIL.), p. 109 (Camden Society, 1844). ‘* Howsoever, I find, by Sandoval, that it was so heinously taken in Rome, that some Cardinals, in a publick Consistory, mov’d to deprive Francis from the title of Christianissimo.”’ Edward Lord Herbert, The Life and Reign, &c. (ut supra), p. 563. See also p. 202. Hobbes writes : “ Deprived from all possibility to acquire,” &e. English Works (ed. 1839-1844), Vol. 2, p. 128. “I shewed them that they shuld be prived from suche benefices as they have nowe, and inhabiled from al other.” Archbishop War- ham, to Cardinal Wolsey, in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &., Third Series (1846), Vol. 2, p. 32. Bereave and reave, like deprive, once were followed by the accu- sative of the thing. “ After the whiche, by full greate cruelte, He berafte them fraunchyse and lyberte.” Lydgate, The Tragedies, &c. (ut supra), fol. 68 r, 106 Beeme.”? Weep, the verb active,” was not, it appears, of any notable currency in our language till long after his day. That reliable, as a derivative, is not without some sort of warrant, the foregoing words bear substantial witness. The family to which it belongs is a meagre one, we must grant. If, however, we are to condemn it because it has but few ‘¢ Berafte him, fyrst, his royall garnement, And slewe him, after, by rightfull judgement.” Id., ibid., Book 8, Chapter 16. ‘¢ Fortune gan from Charles tourne her face, And him berafte her favour and her grace.” Id., ibid., Book 9, Chapter 28. “ But nowe, of newe, he gan agayne provyde By sacrylege his mighty hand to dresse, To spoyle Appollo, and reve hym his richesse,” Id., ibid, fol. 77. “ For casuall chance refte them theyr liberte.” Id, ibid., fol. 88r. See also zd., ibid., fol. 18 r. ‘A lust and desyre to berave my lyfe,” &c. “He shall subdue me, and berave my kyngdom.” Alexander Barclay, Translation of * g ‘Ys Sallust (2nd ed., by Pynson), fol. 21 r. and v. 1 The Repressor, &c., p. 86. I know the old substantive weep ; but its extreme rarity discharges me from supposing it to be at all probable that weepable sprang from it. 2 T am aware that Wicliffe has been quoted for it. Lydgate, who was contemporary with Bishop Pecock, also has the verb active weep. ‘* Which gave to Bochas full great occasion, Whan he sawe her pitous apparayle, For to make a lamentacion Of uncouth sorowes whych dyd her assaile, With a tragedy to wepe and to wayle Her importable and straunge.dedely strifé Which that she had durying all ber lyfe.” The Tragedies, &c. (ut supra), fol. 15, 16. Of course, the very common adjective unwept presupposes weep a8 a verb active, unless we take it to be such a word as unrelied, ‘ not relied on,’ would be. 107 kindred, what are we to say to availadle,’ ‘ what one may avail one’s self of’? Avazladle, like its Old French ancestor, or exemplar, has long meant ‘ profitable,’ ‘ powerful,’ &c. But it now signifies, much more generally, ‘ free or fit to be employed.’ ” 1 Dr. Webster’s editors define available by ‘‘ capable of being availed of,” &c. This is the pseudo-English of second-rate Ameri- can and English newspapers ; but the Rev. Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., LL.D. and the Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., ought to be superior to such barbarism. Yet it should be mentioned, that, for ‘‘ availed of,” they have the authority of President Thomas Jefferson. ‘‘ And of whose judg- ment, there, could we so much wish to be availed, as that of the oldest and purest classic now living?” Letter to Dr. Parr, dated April 26, 1824, in Dr. Parr’s Works, Vol. 1, p. 806. To avail of has been used in the sense of ‘ help.’ «« The providence (of yore it hath be tolde) Full muche avayleth of knightes wise and olde.” Lydgate, The Tragedies, &c. (ut supra), fol. 102 r. Dr. Johnson gives two definitions of available. ‘‘1. Profitable ; advantageous. 2. Powerful; in force; valid.” Dr. Latham, abol- ishing Dr. Johnson’s distinctions, substitutes: “Capable of being turned to avail or account ; profitable ; advantageous; valid.” Simon Fish (about 1529) has the form advailable. As demerit once meant ‘desert,’ good or bad, so the verb active disavail has been used for ‘avail,’ ‘help.’ Margaret Paston (1471), in The Paston Letters (ut supra), Vol. 8, pp. 23, 24. But it ordinarily signified ‘injure,’ ‘ prejudice.” For instances, see Lydgate, The Tragedies, &c. (ut supra), fol. 23 r.,81r.,102v. The corresponding substantive désavail occurs in the same work, fol. 24 v., 33 r., 103 v. 2 «On the other hand, the small holders, constituting, as they do, the bulk of the Company, having no available funds with which to pay the calls on new shares, are obliged to decline them.” . Mr. Herbert Spencer, Essays, &c., Vol. 1 (1858), p. 88. “The hieratic literary documents at present available are as fol- lows.” Mr. C. W. Goodwin, Cambridge Essays, 1858, p. 229. ‘‘ The experimental process is not here to be regarded as a dis- tinct road to the truth, but as a means (happening, accidentally, to be the only, or the best, available) for obtaining the necessary data 108 In this its acceptation of ‘ which one may avail one’s self of,’ it tallies, referentially, with the mo- dernized sense of the rhematic phrase avail one’s for the deductive science.” Mr. J.8. Mill, A System of Logic, &c., Vol. 2, p. 499 (ed. 1865). See also Vol. 1, pp. 450, 462, 512; Vol. 2, pp. 128, 426, &e. “The Romans, whom we profess to imitate in their method of educating, wrote and declaimed on all available subjects.” Mr. W. Johnson, in Essays on a Liberal Education (1867), p. 335. “Such records as are available prove that the brain of man has undergone considerable development in the course of generations.” Dr. Henry Maudsley, The Physiology and Pathology of the Mind (1867), p. 143. “Tt is the first principle of economy to use all available vital power first, then the inexpensive natural forces, and only at last to have recourse to artificial power.” Mr. John Ruskin, Zhe Queen of the Air (1869), pp. 144, 145. “For, indeed, during the last three weeks, the greater part of my available leisure has been spent between Cinderella and Jack in the Box.” Id., Fors Clavigera (1874), p. 54. ‘*When I instituted the Company by giving the tenth of my available property to it, I had, roughly, seventy thousand pounds in money or land, and thirty thousand in pictures and books.” Jd., ibid. (1876), p. 65. « “The success with which he evades these two appellations [spiri- tualist and materialist] is one of the best available tests of a man’s capacity for approaching the great problems with that care and positive judgment which are quite as proper to them as to practical affairs or to physical science.” Mr. John Morley, Voléaire (1872), p. 271. ‘‘Discontented and wearied, I retired to the reading-room, and seized upon the only avatlable literature, in the shape of a back number or two of a highly respectable periodical.” Mr, Leslie Stephen, Lssays on Freethinking and Plainspeaking (1878), p. 157. See also pp. 17, 357. “They narrow the available waste land by their appropriations,” &e. Sir H. J. S. Maine, Lectures on the Early History of Institu- tions (1875), p. 184. See also p. 176. And see the same author's Ancient Law, p. 185 (ed. 1863). 109 self of, in which, formerly, of imported ‘by’; the entire phrase meaning ‘aid one’s self by.’ Idioms like avail one’s self of’ and repent one’s self of were adopted from abroad. The Italian and the French languages abound with them. ‘To serve one’s self of, the French se servir de, was used by some of our best authors for considerably more than two centuries.* If our predecessors had 1 Prevail one’s self of, meaning ‘ profit by,’ ‘take advantage of, is a favourite locution with Lord Herbert of Cherbury. ‘There will be no danger, therefore, to retort this maxime ; not, yet, that I approve a facility in dissolving leagues, which should be inviolably kept, especially while the causes remain; but that, they being dissolved, we may prevail our selves of the present occasion ; not omitting, yet, any circumstance to which, in point of oath and honour, we are obliged.” The Life and Reign, &c. (ut supra), pp. 601, 602. See also pp. 12, 49, 70, 88, 174, 190, 191, 196, 219, 319, 343, 351, 354, 387, 412, 460, 547, 561, 571, 635. Prevail of has been used in the same sense. “The king left me with her, ordaining her to entertaine me. He could not have done me a greater grace; and, desiring to prevaile of it, I said to the princesse,” &c. Anon., Ariana (1636), p. 201. 2 Coleridge has a modification of this. “I not merely subserve my- self of them, but l’employ them.” zterary Remains, Vol. 1, p. 373. 3 It was in days when less quaintness attached than now attaches to of in the sense of ‘ by,’ that the phrase serve one’s self of was in- troduced into our language. In avail one’s self of there is, really, the same quaintness; only we take the expression as a whole, do not stop to analyse it, and so see nothing peculiar init. The equivalent help one’s self of, ifany one were to venture it, would jar immediately. Profit one’s self by, profit one’s self of, and advantage one’s self of, are not without precedent. “Tam more like to profit my selfe by your reports,” &c. Ques- tions of Profitable and Pleasant Concernings (1594), fol. 28. See also fol. 34. ‘* As for Sanders affirmation, that he was not desirous to be reconciled to the Roman Church; and that his courtiers (especially 110 made, from this expression, the adjective servadle, for ‘ which one may serve one’s self by,’ they would have furnished an exact pattern for our available as ordinarily employed at present. Several words which, in neglect of the rigorous rejection exacted by adverse possibilities, have been referred to, by remarkers on reliable, as lend- ing it analogical support,t and several which, those who had profited themselves of abbies), did divert him; and that the Bishops rested doubtful what to answer, lest they should be entrapped ; and how Winchester did cunningly evade the danger ; I leave to his credit.” Edward Lord Herbert, The Life and Reign, &e. (ut supra), p. 632. ‘* For, as the King did not think it enough that he had particu- larly advantag’d himself of the Cardinal's punishment, unless he ‘made some use thereof to the general, so he call’d a Council of the Nobles, to sit in the Star-Chamber, who having sufficiently con- demn’d him, he afterwards permitted him to the Parliament, which began November the third, 1529.” IJd., ibid., p. 298. 1 In 1865, I saw impregnable justification of reliable in account- able, appealable, demurrable, laughable, and unsearchable. No one, to my knowledge, has exposed the possible want of perspicacity shown in this; and the ground which I therein took, ten years ago, has since been taken by many others. The preceding list has been increased by several other words. One is debatable, defined by “ to be debated about,” as if we had no verb active debate. Another is habitable, which means, indeed, ‘‘ to be dwelt in,” but is to be explained through the Latin habztabilis, from habitare, active as wellas neuter : and Chaucer—followed by Henry Earl of Monmouth,—has, through Old French, the verb active habit, ‘inhabit.’ Again, navigable has been challenged, by implica- tion, in support of reliable. ‘‘ Navigabilis, ‘ capable of being sailed (in),’ which is just.as absurd as ‘relied (on).’” This is very thought- less. Navigabdilis occurs as qualifying ‘sea;’ and Cicero applies navigare to ‘‘terram.” As to our navigate, it is no less active than neuter ; and, even if it were neuter only, our barely having Virgil’s navigare equor to fall back_on would keep our navigable from being 111 without severe circumspection, might be referred to, in defence of it, shall now be enumerated and passed in review. Accountable. The sense of this term, here ad- verted to, is not that which it has in expressions like ‘ accountable’ to his master,’ or the like, but the sense of ‘ explicable,’ which it familiarly has, if not in the simple word, in the principal ele- ment of znaccountable, ‘ inexplicable,’ Understood an anomaly like reliable. Nor more to the purpose than navigable is sperable. This last word is used by Bacon, but has still earlier authority. “My Lord of Lecester furdereth the Quenes Majesty, with all good reasons, to take on of these great Prynces, wherin, suerly perceaving his own cause not sperable, he doth honorably and wisely.” Sir William Cecil (1565), in a Henry Eillis’s Original Letters, &c., Second Series (1827), Vol. 2, p. 297. 1 For this, countable once had more or less vogue. a Therfore they be cowntable of as many sowyls as dyen in thys default, and are traytors to God in stoppynge of his lawe, the whiche was made in salvacion of the people.” Anon., 4 Compendious Olde Treatyse, &c. (about 1450?), in Mr. Arber’s edition of Rede me, &., p. 170. “The Apostles . ... are not read to have baptized any but such who, by age, were able to be countable for their faith.” Samuel Hieron, Works (ed. 1624, &c.), Vol. 1, p. 289. “« But, especially, I cannot but pittie that pittifull account which men will make, when they shall come, at the day of the great Audit, to give in their billes of expence to the Lord Paramount, to whom, for these things, wee must bee countable.” Id., ibid., Vol. 1, p. 390. ‘© Oh, how shall I dare to come into the presence of such a sin- cere and such a religious Judge as is hee to whom I am countable/”? Id., ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 186, 187. ee Remember here, by David, what it is to be countable for bloud.” Id., ibid., Vol. 2, p. 315. Bishop Andrewes (1588), has count-books for RAAB, XCVI, Sermons (ed. 1661), p. 689. 112 either way, however, it may have been based on the substantive, and not on the verb, account. Unaccountable, in any of its significations, does not appear to be a word which we have possessed very long; and accountable, ‘ capable of being accounted for,’* though overpassed by the lexicographers, is not, perhaps, its senior in our language: Shakespeare uses neither. It is because the accountable in question belongs, in origin, to an age when words were minted with less heed to prevailing analogies than we now give, in coining new vocables, that one seems authorized to ques- tion whether it may not have set out from a substantive; and certain obsolete senses of both accountable and unaccountable? go to show that this attitude of doubt is reasonable. 1 “ All the seeming inequalities prove... .. that its strangest and least accountable issues were the results of counsel, and govern’d by an infinitely wise Mind, that shoots its self through all things.” Joseph Glanvill, Seasonable Reflections, &c. (1676), pp. 173, 174. ‘« How this superstition should first arise in the Christian Church is very accountable from the propensity of the human mind towards inventions of its own in religious matters.” Rev. Martin Madan, Thelyphthora, Vol. 2 (1780), p. 117. ‘ “But the neglect had not been exclusively on their side : it was reciprocal, easily accountable on both sides; and, when accounted for, it is easily to be excused.’ Southey, Cowper’s Works (ed. 1835-1837), Vol. 2, p. 98. 2 Accountable has been used as equivalent to ‘ deserving of regard or respect,’ ‘ reputable,’ ‘ creditable.’ “And, though their general doctrine of matter and motion be exceeding ancient, and very accountable,” &c. Joseph Glanvill, Essays, &c. (1676), IV., p. 32. 113 Appealable. Alike in its more strict forensic acceptations, and in the sense of it here had in ‘On the other side, he said that the corpuscular philosophy was the eldest and most accountable doctrine.” Jd., ibid., VII., p. 50. ‘*Plain unaffected righteousness and sincerity is accountable in all times, and hath still reputation among the most knowing ; but the flanting shews of the Pharisee are despised assoon as they are understood.” Jd., Seasonable Reflections, &c. (1676), pp. 98, 94. “ And so they let him go from an assertion that is most impious and absurd, to another which is tolerably accountable and specious.” Id., Sudducismus Triumphatus (ed. 1727), p. 456. ‘*T think you are too hard upon them, and believe they may come into their estates by more accountable methods., viz., by their industry, by understanding how to make use of all fair advantages, and by the luck of a good acquaintance.” Jeremy Collier, Zssays upon Several Moral Subjects, Part 1, p. 70 (ed. 1703). “ But, for the particular district or tract of earth which, in a vul- gar sense, we call our country, however bounded or geographically divided, we can never, at this rate, frame any accountable relation to it, nor, consequently, assign any natural or proper affection to- wards it.” Lord Shaftesbury, Characteristicks, &¢., Vol. 3, p. 147 (ed. 1732). Whether, in the ensuing passage, the word accountable means ‘valuable,’ or ‘for which one must give account,’ may, possibly, admit of question. “ Reflect a little upon those years thou hast passed over, those many accountable hours which, with such unhappy security, thou hast boasted over.” Richard Brathwait, Essays upon the Five Senses (1625), p. 104 (in Archaica, Vol. 2). The next quotation exhibits accountable as indubitably one with ‘of account,’ ‘important.’ “ She is not, sir, of mean birth, nor wants a dowry, if beauty and virtue are accountable.” Anon., Jgnoramus (ed. 1736), Act 5. That unaccountable, from meaning ‘inexplicable,’ should have come to mean ‘strange,’ is perfectly natural ; since that which can- not be solved by reason or observation must operate as a perpetual stimulus to curiosity. Involving the sense of account, ‘import- ance,’ and that of account, ‘assignment of justifying causes,’ unac- countable further acquired the significations of ‘inconsiderable,’ ‘ unbecoming,’ ‘ reprehensible.’ H 114 view, this word might be ruled out of court by the same objection which lies against accountable. As **T could give you many examples of this, in the course of my unaccountable life.” De Foe, Robinson Crusoe (1719), Vol. 1, pp. 215, 216 (ed. 1840). “T am not surprised at your Grace’s wondering at our wnaccount- able warmth about Wood's halfpence.” Bp. Nicolson (1724), in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Second Series (1827), Vol. 4, p. 334, “ For want of this common and obvious discerning in those who have the care of youth, we have so many unaccountable creatures, every age, whipped up into great scholars, that are for ever near a right understanding, and will never arrive at it.” Steele, Zhe Spectator, No. 157. “ How unaccountable, then, must their behaviour be, who, without any manner of consideration of what the company they have just now entered are upon, give themselves the air of a messenger, and make as distinct relations of the occurrences they last met with, as if they had been dispatched from those they talk to, to be punc- tually exact in a report of those circumstances.” Jd., ibid., No. 386. ““We may also, with S. Irenzeus, observe, that Jesus, in perform- ing his cures and other miraculous works, did never use... .. any such unaccountable methods or instruments as magicians, in- chanters, diviners, circulatorious juglers, and such emissaries of the Devil, or self-seeking impostours, are wont to use,” &. Isaac Barrow, Works (ed. 1683), Vol. 2, p. 290. ‘* What can be more unaccountable than to solicit against justice, and lend the credit of one’s character to an ill business?” Jeremy Collier, Essays upon Several Moral Subjects, Part 4, p. 198 (ed. 1725). See also Part 4, p. 58; Part 1, pp. 116, 191 (ed. 1703); and A Short View, &c. (1698), p. 179 (ed. 1780). “There would be no end of enumerating the several imaginary perfections and wnaccountable artifices by which this tribe of men insnare the minds of the vulgar, and gain crowds of admirers.” Addison, The Tatler, No. 240. Whether Sir William Temple, in the following passage, intends, by unaccountable, ‘incaleulable,’—a sense given the word by Wol- laston ; with which compare Philemon Holland’s inestimable, ‘countless,’ in his Translation of Ammianus Marcellinus (1609), p. 125,—I am uncertain. 115 meaning,—most usually in its negation, wnappeal- able,—when it qualifies ‘judge,’ ‘judgment,’ or “The money would circulate at home among our selves, and would secure and encrease the vast wealth of our trade. But it is unaccountable, what treasures it would save this nation, by prevent- ing so many wars or quarrels abroad,” &c, Miscellanea (ed. 1696), Part 3, p. 55. lanvill writes of “a considerable argument of the wnaccount- ableness of this theory,” &. Essays, &c. (1676), I., p. 14. Weare here to understand, it seems, ‘strangeness,’ passing into ‘exorbit- ance’ and ‘absurdity.’ Accountableness and unaccountadlencss are wholly omitted by Dr. Johnson ; and Archdeacon Todd and Dr. Richardson know only the former. Account, the verb, has been used for ‘count,’ ‘compute,’ and ‘take into consideration,’ ‘ take account of.’ « Sixe hundred M. accounted was the nombre Of Perciens armed in plate and maile.” Lydgate, The Tragedies, &c. (ut supra), fol. 75 v. “For, whyle that he, by his false workyng, In Macedoyne had the governayle, Thre hundred M., accompted by writynge, Went out of France to conquere Italye.” 1d., ibid., fol. 112 r. “ Durynge this werres, and in the same yere, Of greate Appollo fyll downe the pyllere Of marbyl whyte, large, and of great strength, That syxty cubytes accownte was the length.” Id., ibid , fol, 121 r. “ This eight monthes, accompted day and night, To entre the church thou shalt not com in sight,” Id., ibid., Book 8, Chapter 17, «A thousande, CCC., accompted was the yere Fro Christes byrth, by computacion, Whan that he made his lamentacion.” Id,, ibid,, Book 9, Chapter 30. ‘* All the stuffe that was lefte in my handis, at the departer off Mr. Burbanke, by inventari, accomptyng desperate detts, doithe not amounte to the summe off me askydde,” &c. Dean Richard Pace, to Cardinal Wolsey, in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Third Series (1846), Vol. 1, p. 172. : “Yet the king out of the same had granted divers great pensions 116 the like, ‘ who or which may be appealed from,’ it has all but escaped the dictionary-wrights.’ unto divers noblemen, and unto other of his Council; so that I do suppose, all things accompted, his [Wolsey’s] part was the least.” George Cavendish (about 1560), The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, &c. (ed. Mr. Singer), Vol. 1, p. 239. “Those that have seen, at Hampton Court, the rich and exqui- site works by herself, for the greater part wrought by her own hand and needle, and also of her ladies, esteem them the most precious furniture that are to be accounted amongst the most sumptuous that any prince may be possessed of.” George Wyatt, Some Particulars of the Life of Queen Anne Boleigne (just before 1600), in Mr. Singer’s edition of Cavendish’s Life of Cardinal Wolsey, &c., Vol. 2, p. 207. “But, if the tribe of Levi were not accounted, at that time, amongst the twelve,” &c. Dr. Peter Heylin, Certamen Epistolare (1659), p. 296. See also Edward Lord Herbert, The Life and Reign, ke. (ut supra), pp. 156, 329, 505. Another sense which has been given to the verb active account is ‘set to credit.’ * And, this done, tithes inheritance were accounted unto Levi, as the encrease of their owne barnes and wine-presses, though they had none; and so they might eat them in all the places of their travels.” James Sempil, Sacrilege Sacredly Handled (1619), p. 18. The use of the verb neuter account, instanced below, is peculiar. “By the same eye of faith, by which before he looked through a dead womb, he now looks through a bleeding sword, unto the power of God, accounting that he was able to raise him up even from the dead.” Rev. Dr. William Spurstowe, The Wels of Salvation Opened, &e. (1655), p. 56. In his Essays, &e., III., p. 40, Glanvill has the verb account, instead of account for. ‘A way of accounting the solidity of ice,” &c, See also Glanvill’s Plus Ulira (1668), p. 97. Lydgate has recount, for ‘account,’ ‘ consider.’ “Thy wordes as japes ought wel to be recompted.” The Bayte, &c. (ut supra), sig. A iv. v. 1 «That custome being a false, popular, and appealeable judge,” &e. James Hayward, The Banish’d Virgin (1635), p. 83. “An unappealeable sentence of death.” Id., ibid., p. 30. 117 Laughable. We use laugh at, equally where contempt, and where amusement combined with surprise, are motive causes to interrupt composure. On the one hand, we thereby ‘ would make ridi- culous’; on the other hand, we thereby ‘ recog- nize as diverting.’ In the first case, we ‘ deride,’ or ‘ aim tolaugh down’; in the other, we innocu- ously ‘laugh on account of.’ Laugh at, with this latter signification, is less complex in idea than the laugh at which marks the gratification of ill-will. It is to the good-natured laugh at only that laughable is allied in meaning; for we never intend, by it, ‘He would deliver them as hints for consideration, not as so many unappealable decisions from a chair of infallibility.” God- win, The Enquirer (1797), p. 91. At p. 224 of the same work, un- appealable qualifies ‘‘ propositions.” “ Without such an uncontrouled, unappealable, jurisdiction, I... could not serve.” The First Earl of Malmesbury (1803), Diaries and Correspondence, Vol. 4, p. 282. “ At length we submitted to a galling yet unappealable necessity.” Shelley (1812), in Shelley Memorials, pp. 44, 45. Lord Coleridge is reported to have said, that the books of the Bible “are of absolute and unappealable authority.” The Pall Mall Gazette, September 21, 1865, p. 5. I here pass by the Latinistic inappellable, &c. 8. T. Coleridge has inappellable, in Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, p. 28; and in Literary Remains, Vol. 4, p. 437, in which latter work, Vol. 3, p. 25, he has inappellability, also. Feltham has unappellable, ‘not to be appealed from,’ qualifying a person, in Resolves, &c., p. 304 (ed. 1696). Archdeacon Todd, copied by Dr. Latham, quotes only Dr. South for unappealable, qualifying “judge” ; but he defines it vaguely by “ not admitting appeal.” His American successors do not improve his definition, and strike out his quotation. Dr. Latham prefixes to the Archdeacon’s definition, “incapable of being appealed against”; words which fit “ judge” rather awkwardly, at best. 118 ‘which deserves derision.’ Still, the position that laughable is a derivative of laugh at, ‘laugh on account of, from impersonal mirth,’ rather than from the substantive laugh, might be objected to. The remark may be added, that our not having given the adjective Jaughable the twofold sense of the substantive daugh and of the verb laugh at, is, from a moral point of view, rather a credit to human nature, Unrepliable. Myles Davies writes of ‘‘ the wn- repliable Ab. Tenison’s Tract of Idolatry.”’ The very unusual word here instanced must have set out, from a verb neuter, if not from a substantive. Unsearchable. We search® ‘the Scriptures,’ when we ‘ explore’ or ‘examine’ them; we search out ‘a passage of Scripture,’ when we ‘ find by seeking for’ it. Unsearchable, as twice used in the New Testament, renders Greek terms® signi- 1 Athene Britannice, Part 2 (1716), To the Reader, p.xli. In Part I. (1715), Preface, p. 34, Davies writes of ‘‘topicks that have been answer’d unrepliadly innumerable times.’’ 2 Search, the verb active, meaning ‘search for,’ is not wholly un- known. “Rollo, beinge a Danes... .. arrived in Englond with noe small rowte of lustie yownge menne which serched new habitations, mindinge to joyne in aide with his contriemenn,” &c. ‘Anon. (temp. Hen. VIII.), Translation of Polydore Vergil’s Historia Anglica, p. 208 (Camden Society, 1846). “And... .. it [desire of knowledge]. .... can not rest from searching more knowledge, as long as it spyeth any spot of ignorance.” Dr. Roberte Recorde, The Castle of Knowledge (1556), A, 3’ Avettxvlacros and dvetepevvnros. 119 fying ‘not to be traced or searched out’; and we always intend, by the word, ‘inscrutable,’ ‘ unin- vestigable,’ which we never substitute for ‘ not to be searched.” Unless it be from the substantive search, unsearchable must be from search out, not from the verb unaccompanied by the preposition. Walkable.” Walk, besides being a neuter verb, is a causal; but, in spite of the lexicographers, I question its claim,—as I question that of run, or sail, &., used unmetaphorically to denote mere motion,—to be considered as an active. The 1 Here are some of Dr. Johnson’s definitions. Search, “ ex- plore.” Explore, “search into.” Serutinize, “search,” ‘‘exa- mine.’ Unsearchable, ‘‘ inscrutable, not to be explored.”” Inseru- table, ‘‘unsearchable, not to be traced out by inquiry or study.” Search, search into, examine, and trace out, &c., are, therefore, the same, according to the lexicographer. This, however, is, comparatively, the merest of trifles. ** Are you in search of a short and infallible recipe to write sheer nonsense? Iwill present you with onein aninstant. ‘The rigour of interpretative lexicography,’ says Johnson, ‘requires that the explanation and the word explained should be reciprocal.’ Obey this rule, in your use of his Dictionary, and your success is ensured. I will give you an instance,—that stumbling-block to all keen me- taphysicians, the word cause. “*¢ \ eause is that which produces or effects anything.’ “To effect is * to produce as a cause.’ “To produce is ‘to cause.’ “ Substituting the explanations for the words explained, “© A cause is that which causes, or causes as a cause, anything.’ “ Joy to great Chaos! Do you wish for any further proofs of the value of my nostrum?” Dr, Charles Richardson, Illustrations of English Philology (ed. 1815), p. 15. £«* Your now walkable roads.” Swift, Works (ed. Sir Walter Scott, 1824), Vol. 18, p. 447. ‘‘ Amore walkable country.” Cow- per, Works (ed. Southey, 1835-1837), Vol. 6, p. 18. “A walkable distanc2.” Southey, Selections from the Letters, &c., Vol. 1, p. 81. : 120 places which we idiomatically walk on, or walk over, or walk through, are much more numerous than those which we simply wadk, without the aid of a preposition; and it may, therefore, be con- tended, that those which we walk without such aid are walked elliptically. We may walk the ‘streets,’ or a ‘deck,’ or a ‘ rope,’ or a ‘ plank’; and poets walk ‘ the world,’ ‘ the water,’ and pretty much whatever else they please. But we do not walk a ‘city,’ a ‘field,’ a ‘ garden,’ a ‘floor.’ When we say ‘ to walk the streets,’ there is some- thing understood, quite as much as in the phrases ‘ fleeing poverty’ and ‘ swimming a match.’ Walk- able, however, as it ig not proveably from walk over, but may have been grounded on the substantive nalk, cannot irrecusably be drawn into a precedent as strengthening the cause of reliable.” 1 See, further, my concluding remarks on commence, ‘begin to be,’ &c., in Recent Exemplifications of False Philology. 2 see it stated that unrepentadle, used by Pollok, has been brought forward as sustaining reliable. But unrepentadle is just as regular as undiscoverable. For trrepenitable, used by William Prynne, see the extract from his Histriomastizx, at the foot of p. 133, infra. The verb repent, reflexive, and also active, has long been in our language. “T wolle me repente.” Poem On the Deposition of Richard II. (1899 %), in Political Poems and Songs, dc. (1859), Vol. 1, p. 391. “‘The seid Wharles told my mayster,..... that he repented hym that he payd you any peny, till he had be distreyned.” John Gloys (1451), in Zhe Paston Letters, Vol. 1, p. 193 (ed. 1872-1875). ‘“‘And Syr Tristram may knowe hit, ye wille repente hit.” ‘‘Whanne the kynge herd this, he repentyd hit moche.” ‘He 121 The nine words next below named and remarked on differ from reliable, based on rely on, in being based, each, on a verb active, and not on a con- cretion having the virtue of such a verb.’ Besides » . . Sore repented hym.” Sir Thomas Malory, Za Mort Darthur (1469), Vol. 2, pp. 125, 204, 260 (ed. Southey). “Sythins yt was my fortune to be oon of this Cownsell, which L have repentid a thousand tymys,” &e. Dr. William Knight (1512), in Sir Henry Ellis’s Original Letters, &c., Second Series (1827), Vol. 1, p. 199. “ A servaunte of Mr. Payges, wiche came from thense this daye, sayethe that he nowe repentithe his words, sayenge that he spake them afore he herde of the Kyngs commawndement.” Abp. Edward Lee (1535), ibid., Third Series (1846), Vol. 2, p. 343. “ Nowe I repent, therefore, my necligence to God, Who hathe me corrected with his dyvyn rod.” George Cavendish (1558), in Mr. Singer’s edition of The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, &c., Vol. 2, p. 69. Other instances occur in the same volume, pp. 66, 68, 109, 128. Add Bishop Bale (1544), Select Works (1849), p. 180. he use of repent, exemplified below, is somewhat peculiar. ‘* There was never thing that repented me more, that ever I did, than doth the remembrance,” &c. George Cavendish (about 1560), The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, &c. (ut supra), Vol. 1, p. 200. 1 Philemon Holland has: ‘‘ Now, the Emperour, when he un- derstood this, falling into an ¢rreclamable fitof anger and wrath, reposed all the assurance and confidence hee had of establishing his owne securitie, in making him away.’ Translation of Ammianus Marcellinus (1609), p. 26.